


Way of the Wolf

by wcfarrow



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Brief suicidal ideation, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, F/M, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Warrior Cats, Werewolves, Wolves, sibling dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 19:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19324255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wcfarrow/pseuds/wcfarrow
Summary: Being a hollow-guard requires incredible skill and strength. One must trust their instincts, even on the smallest of hunches. They must also be fierce and unyielding, willing to lay their life down for the Tribe of Soaring Oaks.As of late, many have.There are reports of a fearsome creature, the natural embodiment of a storm's fury, that walks the borders, picking off Tribe cats one by one. It appears only for a short while at a time, and when it does, it leaves no survivors. Yet somehow Drift of Red Leaf is unscathed after an encounter with the beast. It fascinates him, and he fascinates it. But what is the creature truly, and why is Drift exempt from its killing spree? The answers can only be found on nights when moonbeams shatter the clouds; that is the way of the wolf.[UPDATES SATURDAYS]





	1. The Guard Shift

The forest did not mourn the same lives as the Tribe, so when Fern Beneath Old Beech was borne into camp, heart still and eyes closed, only the Tribe cried out. The Tribe wailed, aching for a life long lost. It howled, wishing for a way to alter fate long set. It suffered, burying a cat long revered.

But the forest did nothing but hold its stoic silence. The oaks the Tribe took its name from so long ago didn't so much as creak, and the cool, twisting winds of early autumn ceased altogether. Nothing moved, nothing stirred, nothing lived but the Tribe of Soaring Oaks.

It was living poorly at that.

Fern was not the first cat to die. She was the first prey-hunter to die, yes, but not the first cat. Before had come six of the Tribe's finest hollow-guards, struck down in their prime.

Mauled, really, if Drift of Red Leaf was honest with himself. He'd seen every one of his fallen Tribemates up close, and had even been the cat to discover the body in one case. They were all the same: bloodied, broken, with fur torn out and great gaping wounds in the shape of hungry jaws.

Like the rest of the Tribe, Drift blamed the wolves. In the past, the grey beasts kept to their packs, hunting animals that would fill their bellies, which cats did not. Cats had no fear of being devoured by the wolves, and needed only to refrain from going out of their way to encounter a pack. The packs and the Tribe, with only a few rare cases of foul crossings, lived separate lives, seated expertly on two sides of a fragile balance by some higher power.

But then the first lone wolf roamed too close to the hollow. It attacked no one, but Drift remembered it clearly all the same. Hackles raised, young heart pounding in his chest, he locked eyes with the wolf for the scant few seconds the creature deemed him of interest.

It snarled.

He snarled back.

And then it was gone, a grey ghost of the misty spring morning. Drift reported it to the Poolteller, eager to prove his worth as a watchful, valiant hollow-guard who was unafraid to look death in the eye. He had identified a threat to his Tribe, and was now ensuring the Tribe's preparedness for the future.

This was the old Poolteller, though, the one who died days before the first attack. He asked his hollow-guards to be more vigilant, but did no more. A wandering wolf was no threat to him or his Tribe. It would move on to richer grounds in search of a pack, as all wolves do.

Seven attacks and one new Poolteller later, the wolf appeared to have no intention of leaving. Similarly, the to-bes had no intention of becoming hollow-guards. As a result, the guards dwindled and the shifts thinned. By the time a break in the deaths arrived, the guards were so scarce that the Poolteller could only afford one cat per shift assignment each morning. Dawn to sunhigh was the preferred shift, if only because the world was filled with light, and danger could be seen coming from afar. It was also a warm shift, something coveted with the full onset of autumn. Sunhigh to dusk was popular for similar reasons, though cats preferred to witness the sunrise, not the sunset. However, sunset was better than keeping watch from dusk to moonhigh, and that was in turn superior to standing guard from moonhigh until dawn.

The dark hours were the dangerous ones. Cats failed to return from the darkest shift more than any other, and every time the Poolteller assigned Drift the watch from moonhigh until dawn, Drift shuddered, imagining his body hanging limply from the slavering fangs of a wolf.

He imagined it especially clearly as the wolf stared at him, too.


	2. The Wolf

The wolf was haggard. Its grey fur was ruffled and streaked with muted russet. It had yellow eyes like moons, and its breath reeked of meals past, a putrid scent capable of inspiring fear even in a cat with his nose shorn off.

Drift's nose was in perfect order, though, and the wolf's breath put terror into every inch of his bones. Tribe of Endless Hunting, he prayed silently, unable even to move his mouth to the words, let me join your ranks with painless haste. You hold my life in your paws.

He screwed his eyes shut as if the wolf would vanish without anyone looking directly at it. It only stepped closer, sniffing Drift's ears, his side, his tail. It huffed its way through the inspection with deliberate slowness, its hot breath sending chills racing down Drift's spine.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone, loping away through the oaks without so much as a howl. Overwhelmed with relief, Drift sank into the detritus of the forest floor, legs too weak to support him. Coherent thought eluded him as he crunched leaves in his claws. The crinkling noise, he realized dimly, meant that he was still alive instead of roaming the silent forests of his ancestors. Shortly thereafter, cognizance restored, he unleashed every grateful prayer he knew in rapid succession, some aloud. The Tribe of Endless Hunting had delivered him from a gruesome death, and if Drift was ambivalent about his religion before, there was no doubt of his devoutness now.

By the time Drift recovered his composure well enough to stand, thin threads of dawn glowed atop the forested hills on all sides. He staggered a few paces, limbs quavering, but after pausing to suck in deep lungfuls of cool dawn air, he found his balance again and hurtled homeward. He had to stop the next shift.

[-]

Peak was waiting for him at the camp entrance, a knotted bracken tunnel crafted generations ago. Her dark fur was smooth along her spine, and she yawned, exposing her sharp white fangs. Among the hollow-guards, she was the youngest, but arguably just as skilled as the rest, and as Drift scampered up in disarray, her whole demeanor changed to something sharper, something warlike. "Did you see something?" she asked, bolting to her feet, tail lashing.

Drift nodded, chest heaving as he caught his breath. "The wolf," he choked out. "Don't go."

The other hollow-guard needed no further explanation. Without asking questions, she ushered Drift through the bracken fronds, valiantly bringing up the rear even though there were no threats in sight. Once inside, among the tightly knit thicket of ferns and brambles, she ordered him to sit in the shadow of a blackberry bush while she fetched the Poolteller.

Drift agreed to the proposition readily, and did not sit so much as fall into a heap underneath a low-hanging fern. He scraped together a weak excuse for bedding from the nearby scraps of moss, and by the time the Poolteller arrived, the shock of meeting the wolf, of surviving the wolf had returned, and he stammered a greeting, if only just.

"Tell me what you saw," the Poolteller commanded, laying her tail neatly over her front paws. Like Peak, she was also remarkably young for her position, but more than skilled enough to hold her rank with dignity. It helped that she had been destined as the next Poolteller from the moment she opened her eyes.

At first, the words could not be found to describe how narrowly Drift had escaped the wolf's grasp. And yet had he escaped? Or had he been spared? In halting words, he crafted as clear a narrative as he could, though it was colored by blind fear. He could not recall what he had been doing when the wolf appeared, or how it had crept up on him so stealthily. A haze clouded the details, and though he struggled to break through it, the effort was in vain. He could only tell the Poolteller so much.

She looked upset as Drift finished. Her shoulders were rigid, and a wistful film passed over her green eyes, normally so startling and clear. Once she caught Drift staring, though, she snapped back to attention. However, she did not leave like the previous Poolteller might have. Instead she sank to her belly beside Drift and began to groom his ears.

The familiar motion set Drift at ease. Unbidden but not unexpected, kithood came to mind, the days when his mother would tug him close to set his fur right, even against his will, while his sister laughed away. She would then get caught and subjected to the same thorough cleaning.

In the nursery, before their to-be days, he and the Poolteller had been close. Then, she had been known as Fawn Leaping Over Stream. Now, though, her duties kept them well apart with few moments for shared tenderness. The last time they had been so close to one another was when they lost their father to an accidental wolf encounter.

They did not speak of it.

Drift allowed his sister to groom him without protest, taking comfort in her steady warmth and the precise strokes of her tongue. She was efficient, but not heartlessly so. With her time so confined to watching the sacred pool, waiting for guidance from their ancestors, she had mastered the art of comfort in limited moments long ago.

And this was a limited moment like any other. "I need to consult with the Tribe of Endless Hunting," she said, shoulders sagging. "I believe they saved your life, but they do not do so lightly. They will want something in return, no doubt, and I will have to provide it." She sighed. "I'll send Peak on her shift, but warn her to stay close to camp. You have the dusk shift, so you should stay nearby, too."

With that, she was gone, leaving Drift to shiver under the ferns with dread. He would fulfill the dusk shift, especially since there was no one else to step in but the other three hollow-guards, who would be exhausted from their own shifts, but he could not say he was happy about it. He had almost died.

But almost dying was not the same as death.

Laying his head on the paltry moss pillow he'd collected, too exhausted to consider crossing camp to his own nest, Drift tried to ignore the twisting of his gut, the suspicion that today was not the end of things. The wolf investigating his pelt hadn't been a truce or treaty. It hadn't been a sign of acquiescence, a sign that the wolf was finally leaving the Tribe to its own devices.

Something about him had captured the wolf's attention, and it would be back for more until its curiosity was sated. After that, it would likely sate its hunger as well. Drift could almost sense the beast waiting among the oaks for the right moment to strike. It was not gone. It was just patient.


	3. The Kit

The waiting was always the hardest part. The danger of the shift could keep Drift alert, while the relief that followed his return home allowed him to rest easy, if only for a while. But the waiting, the space between rest and responsibility, was the worst.

Drift had never been patient. He was smart enough to feign it, but he was never at peace when another shift loomed on the horizon, and this was no different.

Try as he might, he could not settle into comfort, let alone sleep. The moss was too thin in one place, the ground too hard in another. He felt like an elder, never satisfied with his lot, except he wasn't plagued by the insomnia of age.

Drift saw the wolf's fangs glittering in the dawn every time he closed his eyes. He could not sleep. He didn't want to. Not even begging poppy seeds from Poolteller could scrub the beast from behind his eyes. It would just lurk, waiting for the sedatives to slide away, to leave Drift open to fear again.

His appetite suffered, too. Facing the dusk shift without food in his belly was reckless, but every glance at the freshkill pile filled him revulsion. Bile rose in his throat, a tidal wave of nausea that threatened to knock him off his feet. When he saw one of the to-bes take a skinny vole to the nursery, he actually wretched, then dug a shallow scrape to hide the evidence.

This was worse than the usual waiting. So much worse.

He tried again to sleep when Poolteller poked her head out of the bracken tunnel that led to her den, but she withdrew almost immediately, taking Drift's desire for rest with her. He didn't want to risk dreaming almost as much as he didn't want to worry his sister.

So Drift tossed and turned, whiling away the hours before Peak or one of the other hollow-guards came to fetch him, praying for relief while uncertain of its price. Eventually, his hunger got the better of him, and fighting down the urge to retch again, he forced himself to nibble on a mouse, like a responsible hollow-guard would do. Unlike most pre-shift meals, though, he did not eat alone. Flight of Small Bird joined him, a finch dangling from her jaws.

It gave him some comfort to know that she was safe from the wolf. In fact, most prey-hunters were. They left camp in groups when the sun rose, and returned before it set, without fail. The wolf was a creature of the dark hours, and it rarely crossed their paths.

But Flight still worried. Not in a way that kept her from sleep, and certainly not in a way that kept her from her dinner. It was all in her eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners when Drift took too long to finish a meal, or how they flashed with too much fire for such a narrow body at any mention of the wolf.

Drift was guilty of looking at her eyes a lot, and they both knew it. She usually caught him, though, making her guilty of the same. Not that they acknowledged it. Especially not since Drift was a hollow-guard. There was nothing to keep him any safer than his predecessors, no guarantee that he would return alive every morning.

They didn't talk about the wolf because it scared them. They didn't talk about love because that scared them, too. Those were their two unspoken rules.

Except Flight chose that meal to break one of them.

"Let me walk you out tonight," she said, picking feathers from her meal and flicking them aside. "Just in case."

"No," said Drift. The words were automatic, a fear reflex. "No, thank you. I'll be fine, and Poolteller wants me close to camp anyway. It's alright."

Flight furrowed her brow. "I heard what happened today, and it's not fine. Drift, you met  _it_. Don't tell me it's fine; it isn't safe, and you know it."

Which was why he didn't want her to go, but he couldn't say it. Instead, he chewed his mouse as if considering it, as if he hadn't already made up his mind. He let her believe she might have convinced him.

She let him believe he could ever hope to stop her.

In the end, Drift rose to bury the bones of his meal, and somehow, Flight followed him all the way to the watch post. Twice, he asked her to leave, and twice she ignored him, sticking doggedly to his side.

"You can't do this every night," he said as he took up his station by the stray ash tree that marked some three-odd tree-lengths from the hollow's entrance. Close enough to raise a warning, far enough to buy time.

Flight looked back along the faint trail they'd taken, as if rethinking her choice. She stayed, though, seating herself beside Drift. "Just worry about tonight." Truly, they did not have the luxury of looking to the future. Surviving just one night was its own task.

When moonhigh came, Flight was still there, and Drift was still trying to send her away. The watch was warmer with her near, yet colder as terror crept into Drift's heart. For every heartbeat she remained, he imagined the wolf striking her down, brutal and swift. It wasn't her job to be out here, putting her life at risk to guard the Tribe. That was his burden to bear. Nonetheless, nothing could deter Flight from her place at his side.

Nothing except the kit.

Drift heard it first, though he did not realize it. To him, it sounded like the thin call of a winter bird, arrived too early for the season. It was a haunting wail, reedy and far-reaching, especially in the cold night.

As the crying rose in pitch, Flight pricked her ears. "Do you hear that?" she asked. But she didn't wait for an answer, instead bolting past Drift with her tail held low. She beckoned him with it, pausing just long enough for him to race to her side before hurtling away again.

All that waiting for something to happen, all that tamped-down fear, and now something really was happening. Flight's keen hunting senses led them in the right direction, and the further they got from the ash tree, the better Drift understood the rush. The birdsong was not birdsong at all, but the wordless cries of a kit in need of comfort, a kit far too young to be in the forest all alone.

They found her trembling in a cluster of rosemary, her amber eyes as wide as moons. Her ribs poked out from her matted grey sides, and she stared up at Flight and Drift like she couldn't decide if they would save her or send her to the wolves.

"Shhh, little one, we're here to help," cooed Flight. She licked the kit's forehead in soft, rhythmic strokes, and the kit sniffled at her touch.

Kits were never Drift's greatest strength. Even though the tiny bundle seemed to be warming to Flight's attention, she still eyed him with anxious suspicion etched into her round face. Eventually, he stepped back a few paces to offer her more breathing room.

That was when he found the print.

It was fresh, a marker of recent passage pressed into the sandy soil. There were more, too, an entire chain that twisted away from the rosemary patch and back into the woods. They were wolf tracks, heavy and dark, and all too close to the Tribe.

"Flight?" He gestured to the tracks with the barest nod of his head, and she followed the motion perfectly. Drift saw the precise moment that ice shuddered down her spine. It made her curl a protective paw around the kit, tail bristling, a muscle jumping in her jaw.

"She needs a mother," she whispered. "Drift, we have to find her mother fast."

Maybe it was the mention of her mother. Maybe the kit had sharper senses than two full-grown cats. Either way, she burst out wailing again, and no matter what Flight said or did, she wouldn't stop.

Ultimately, Drift couldn't blame her. If he had been an abandoned kit, he too would have fussed and cried at the silhouette of the wolf weaving between the trees. He was not a kit, though. He was a hollow-guard, and his first reaction was to grow very still.

His second reaction was to protect the cats behind him. "Run," he said to Flight. The wolf's ears swiveled their way. "Run."


	4. Protection

As soon as Flight had the kit in her jaws, she was gone. The rosemary rustled with her escape, but that was the last of her presence to linger. Even her scent seemed to have fled the scene, leaving Drift to cover her escape by himself.

Bleakly, he realized the best he could hope for was a clean death. And that Flight wouldn't stash the kit somewhere safe, then rush back just in time to see the wolf maul him. For the second time in less than a day, he said his prayers to the Tribe of Endless Hunting and hoped that would be enough.

The wolf stalked down the slope toward Drift with its ears pinned back, teeth shining in a hungry grimace. The undergrowth seemed to bend around it, cloaking it in shadows mixed with moonlight, and the wind howled a low greeting, as if welcoming it home. The forest and the wolf were familiar to one another; they were allies.

Meanwhile, Drift received no comfort from the world around him. He simply shivered as fear seeped into his bones, purging all rational thought. Part of him ached to flee, part of him yearned to fight, and the rest of him tried to make peace with death as the beast slunk down the slope toward him.

The earth seemed to draw him in with every step the wolf took. Drift couldn't move his feet, not to run, not to make a stand. He was taking root; perhaps he would be granted new life as a mighty oak if he held his ground his way. Or perhaps not, and perhaps he was simply doomed.

"You will not harm them," he said. Fear,  _real_  fear, made for loose lips, which did not surprise him terribly. More unusual by far was the wolf's reaction to Drift's vow: it pinned its ears back and stopped, nostrils flaring.

The wolf could not possibly understand him. There was no way it could, not even with the grace of the Tribe of Endless Hunting, not in this life or any other. Yet it stopped at his words, appraising him, assessing him, looking right at him.

And then the hot, rotten breath rolled down Drift's neck, and the shadow fell over him. It was a second wolf.

He could have sworn it was  _the_  wolf, too, the very same one that he met at dawn. It smelled of the same decay, held itself with the same hunched posture. Even the eyes were familiar, great amber things filled with some wolfish light Drift could only guess at, something that sparkled like greed, or possessiveness.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then, the wolf attacked.

Drift threw himself flat to the ground as the beast at his back lunged, and it missed. And then it kept going, like it never missed at all, baying what could only be a grisly threat as it slammed into the other wolf. They fell to the earth together, snarling and tearing at one another with their shining fangs. Drift watched the ghastly scene with his heart in his throat, wincing as blood and spittle sprayed, as snarls and howls split the night air. There he was, easy prey, and the wolves were warring with one another instead.

In a rush, his senses returned to him. Sooner or later, one wolf would win, and Drift would be defenseless once again. Breath coming in short bursts, he hurled himself into the rosemary, grinding it into his pelt as quickly as he could, and then he dashed into the undergrowth without a single backwards glance. He could still hear the fight beyond the rush of blood in his ears, all the yelps and growls as the wolves dueled, but he did not stop running until he could hear them no more.

By then, his fearful feet had taken him well around the edge of the Tribe's territory, through two freezing streams and one exposed glade, before coming to a halt almost near the camp entrance. He ached with the effort, with the distance, but a kernel of relief formed deep in his chest. Drift had survived the wolf not once, but twice. The Tribe of Endless Hunting must have been watching over him, protecting him from harm.

Poolteller thought the same when Drift finally trudged into camp, stinking of rosemary and wolf.

She was the first to see him return in the thin dawn light, and she rose from the mouth of her den like she had seen a ghost, her jaw gaping open in disbelief. Then she hurtled across the camp, slicing through the morning mist with more haste than Drift had ever seen from her in his life.

"I prayed for a miracle!" she cried, almost crashing into him. "The Tribe of Endless Hunting sent me a vision, and I prayed it wasn't true."

Poolteller gave Drift no chance to speak, and ushered him to her den. He allowed her to fret and fuss, to search him for any sign of injury that would render the miracle incomplete; he would rather his sister worried over his safety and wellbeing than over his dead body. Besides, she let him borrow her plush nest and brought him a small vole, which he gulped down. Fear had made him famished.

Only once the vole was gone did Poolteller finally seem satisfied that Drift was truly alive and well, not a shade or a spirit visiting her one last time. "I had a vision," she said again, "of you and a wolf standing in this very den, by the pool, and when I looked into the water, only the wolf was still there." She shuddered and cast a fleeting glance back at the sacred waters. "I thought it meant you were dead, and when Flight came to get me…"

Flight had made it back, and presumably the kit, too. Drift sighed and ran his tongue over his sister's ears, hoping to share some of his relief. "I got away," he reassured her," and so did Flight. No one is hurt. The vision was just a bad dream."

And so it went until Poolteller finally rediscovered her composure and resumed her role as the holy head of the Tribe. Drift saw through it, of course, catching glimpses of the real Poolteller beneath the squared shoulders and graceful gait, but the rest of the Tribe believed the confidence she wore like a second skin. They trusted in it as she stepped out of her den with Drift in tow, soaked it up for themselves even as the knowledge of the wolf haunted them still. And when Poolteller announced that the Tribe of Endless Hunting had shown their favor by protecting Drift twice, they even cheered.

Flight might have been the loudest of them all, and she hurtled to Drift's side the instant Poolteller left, burying her nose in his fur and thanking her ancestors aloud for his survival. "She wouldn't let me go back for you, not even with a patrol." Drift winced at the furious glance Flight threw at Poolteller's retreating form. "I barely dropped the kit off with Dawn before she found me, and she kept blocking my way out of the nursery. I tried to come back for you. I did."

Drift's stomach lurched at the thought. "Maybe she was trying to protect you, and the rest of the Tribe," he said. "She can't always make the easy decision."

"I'm not sure she even made the right one."

"Still, I'm here, in one piece. Focus on that?" She did, it seemed. Flight looked him up and down as if committing every last stripe in his pelt to memory, brows furrowed tight enough to squeeze Drift's heart. She looked at him like she would never get another chance to do so.

Then she said, "Get some sleep. Please," and left him to his own devices as a hunting patrol began to take shape near the prey-hunters' den. He tried to purr when she looked back over her shoulder at him, tried to capture some of the relief, the euphoria that filled the camp at Poolteller's miraculous declaration. It caught in his throat, though, and probably registered on his face like shock if the pitying glances he met on the way to his nest were anything to go by.

Even safe among the moss, ease was far off, and the bated breath of the wolf closed in once again. This time, though, Drift did not dread to close his eyes, instead leaning into his weariness willingly. He allowed the scene to play out over and over again, narrowing his focus to the second wolf, the one that crept up on him without so much as a sound. Perhaps it was the fugue of exhaustion, but Drift was prepared to swear on his life that he had met the second wolf before, the morning prior.

Two encounters. One wolf. And yet, no deaths.

Drift had been easy prey on both occasions, and yet the wolf had barely taken notice of him save for a brief sniff. It let him go, allowed him to keep his life, and though he should have been afraid of the wolf's power over him, he was grateful for its mercy. How strange, to feel like player and pawn in the same game when he thought of the wolf's wild eyes watching over him. How strange.

And stranger still, Drift decided not to inform Poolteller of this new, uneasy sort of ease. Not because he wanted to spare her another fright after her nightmare, but because suddenly, he wanted the wolf and all its portents to himself.

Player, pawn. Right, wrong. Drift felt it all at once as he truly slept for the first time in moons.


	5. An Attachment

For the next few days, his attention was thoroughly divided. First came the wolf in all its haggard glory. Its jagged muzzle startled him from dreams more than once, but it haunted him at a distance rather than in the flesh, as if two encounters in one day was enough for a lifetime. Really, just one meeting ought to have been plenty, but Drift could feel his bones rattle when the wolves cried to the moon late at night. He felt called.

It made him feel reckless, this call. It didn't belong to him, and by his ancestors, it should have repelled him, should have sent him running for fear of his life. But it didn't, not anymore. Truth be told, it couldn't.

Curiosity made a fine shield up until it shattered, and Drift found himself determined to make the most of it. On a whim, a sly impulse, he began to seek out the dusk and night shifts on purpose. He volunteered for them when Poolteller struggled to cobble together a fair schedule with so few hollow-guards, and when she failed to do that, he traded shifts behind her back, relieving his fellows of the worst of their duties.

Hawk Passing Over Stream was the first to catch on, when Drift offered to pick up her night shift for the third time. "Do you have a death wish?" she asked.

"Hardly," he answered, telling the truth. He wasn't after another tragedy; the Tribe had seen enough for nine lifetimes over at this rate. Answers, on the other hand, had been lacking for far too long, and clearly the Tribe of Endless Hunting had no intentions to share the truth of things with their beleaguered descendants.

So Drift made it his mission to seek the answers himself, even if it meant his denmates calling him moonstruck. Someone had to find the wolf again, and someone had to learn why after generations of peace, it was so thirsty for Tribe blood. Drift would be that someone. He would find the wolf before it found him, and then he would understand. At least, that was what he hoped, but the corner of his mind that guarded his fear until he would need it again insisted that he was rushing.

_What if it's an entire pack_? it asked him every evening.  _What if it's not_ the  _wolf_? But it had to be that ragged beast, and Drift swore he would make it tremble in its awful red pelt once he finally caught up with it.

There was, however, one obstacle, and she had been named Print of Wolf in Sand.

To everyone's relief, especially Flight's, the kit had shaken off the shock of her ordeal in the woods and adapted to life in the Tribe nursery with impressive ease. Some cats still regarded her with disquiet in their eyes, wary of the history she refused to share and of the name she carried.

When Print hadn't given her name, Flight had taken it upon herself to give her one befitting a Tribe-born kit. Traditionally, Print should have been named after the first thing her mother saw after her birth, but without that information, Flight had thought back to the first thing she'd seen after spying Print huddled in the rosemary, and that was that.

Dawn had respected the choice and agreed to nurse Print alongside her own son, but the hollow-guards were particularly nervous. Print's name had been selected in the traditional spirit, but a fair share of cats thought it an ill omen, naming an innocent kit after the very beast that was set on picking the Tribe's bones clean.

Print's salvation lay in her innate cheer. Perhaps a little too old to be around the other kits, she attached herself to Drift and Flight, whoever was available at the time, and she asked questions constantly. Truly, it was a wonder when she stopped to breath, and her enthusiasm for Tribe life was infectious. Print made every effort to integrate herself, unafraid of mistakes and always willing to try again. She joined the to-bes in sprucing up the elders' den with new moss, and made it her personal duty to greet hunting parties as they returned, carrying prey to the fresh-kill pile whenever they allowed her to.

She learned about the Tribe of Soaring Oaks every moment of every day, but it was only a matter of time before she learned that life in the Tribe was not as idyllic as it had been during her short stay.

Drift was with her when it happened. Once again, her eager nature had charmed him into surrendering a shift meant for pursuing the wolf; breaking a promise to play moss-ball before bed was a cardinal sin, after all. So he let Peak prepare to face the coming night, while Print swatted at the moss, eyes gleaming with the instinct of a young hunter in the making.

Tucked against the nursery, neither one of them realized anything was wrong at first. The camp's entrance was curled behind the edge of the hollow-guards' den, just out of sight, especially with the bramble fringes of the nursery further blocking the way. Mourning wails, though, could be heard from any corner of the camp, and the instant they went up, Print dropped the moss ball and pinned her ears flat against her head. "Drift, what's happening?" she asked.

Drift looked toward the camp center, where cats began to gather. He knew what his Tribemates' cries meant, but he didn't want to believe it, not until he saw it. "Go to Dawn," he muttered, sweeping her behind him with his tail. Instead of going into the nursery, though, she peeped out from around him.

When she gasped, Drift knew she needed to know about the wolf, about what it could do and what it had done. He also knew he didn't want her to get too close to the body. Not now. Not yet.

Before Print could witness anything more, Drift took her scruff in his jaws and brought her to Dawn, who had already pulled her son close. She gave Drift a look loaded with fearful questions, but he had nothing to offer her. Instead, he spun around and hurried out to join the throng.

One of the last to arrive, he couldn't see through the heavy press of fur, and the cloying scent of death nearly choked him. Even the cats closest to him seemed to lose their individual scents with the thick stench of blood washing over everything.

Eventually, there was a break in the crowd, and Drift slipped into it, only to find his heart lodged firmly in his throat. There was black fur ahead of him, slicked back with too much blood, far too much. "Peak," he breathed, voice splintering. Except she threw her head back in a yowl that split the sky, revealing Shrew Hiding in Holly Bush just beside her, massacred beyond recognition.

Revulsion rose in his throat, bitter and scorching. How easily he had forgotten what the wolf could take from the Tribe after it had spared him twice. Shrew's death suddenly appeared to be a price rather than happenstance, especially because he was a prey-hunter. He was supposed to be safe from a senseless death.

The faintest movement between Drift's forelegs drew his attention, and his stomach twisted as Print, trembling and speechless, stared at Shrew's body. Somehow, she had escaped Dawn's protection, only to learn the worst of the world was a part of her home.

For the second time, Drift carried her away to the nursery. He was no more able to continue looking on than Print was, not when he was short of breath and caught between rage and shame.

The wolf had left its mark again, this time on someone was who never meant to be marked in such a way, and Drift was certain he would go mad if he didn't do something, really do something. No more sitting at his post all night, waiting for a sign of the wolf worth following. Maybe, he thought, if he had put more effort into finding the wolf before it came to this, maybe Shrew would not have met such a gruesome end. Maybe this was his fault.

"It won't happen again," he told Print when she clung to his leg at the nursery entrance. "The wolf will never touch us again."

"How do you know?" she whimpered, her amber eyes flitting back to Peak when another cry rang out.

"I just do."

He left out that he was willing to die trying to prove it.


	6. Pursuit

Poolteller couldn't stop him from picking up Peak's shift while she mourned her brother. As the Tribe's guiding light, she had a funeral to attend to, and an argument with Drift would not generate any of the morale so desperately needed by all. Nonetheless, she gave Drift a wounded, wordless glance as he left the camp, as if it might dissuade him.

It did not.

He seethed with restless energy as he stalked into the night. Every hair on his pelt stood on end, kept there by the sheer force of his drive. Grief was supposed to make cats slow, even lethargic, but it stoked a fire in his chest that had been waiting for release.

When he reached the ash that marked out his post, he marched straight past it without pausing. There was no need to scent the air and search for a place to begin his hunt; Shrew's blood made a fine trail, especially by the light of the waxing moon. What little light managed to pierce the treetops glimmered back up at Drift in each bead of blood, and he smudged out the path as he went. Shrew's death should not have left such beautiful remains.

At least the place where Shrew died did not pretend to be glamourous. Beside a fallen log dotted with mushrooms, the grass was trampled and slick with blood, leaving no doubt in Drift's mind that the wolf had been responsible. No other creature in the Tribe's land was so vicious as to bleed a cat nearly dry. And yet there was still more blood, far more than Drift expected from Shrew's wiry frame. Even he might not bleed so much, and he was a far bigger cat.

But that meant the wolf had suffered, and Drift purred with dark satisfaction. At least Shrew had fought for his life. He died with more than his fair share of honor, and in the process, he'd also paved the way.

Another blood trail, this one heavier than Shrew's, led still further from camp, visible enough across the drying autumn grass that Drift barely needed his nose to follow it. He did not wipe any of it away, unlike before, because if he needed to bring back reinforcements to end the wolf once and for all, its dripping wounds had made a clear path. Hopefully, though, the wolf was so gravely wounded that Drift would not require a second trip. If it was injured and he was quick, he could tear out its throat, savage it to the point of no return.

He had spent half a moon enthralled by the night howls and his tentative connection to the beast, but he had never truly acted on it. Fear had held him back. Now, though, he was angry. Hungry. No longer under the wolf's spell.

Revenge was more alluring than Drift ever imagined it might be. Revenge also gave him pause, if only for a moment.

Drift had rarely killed before. Not counting prey caught here and there, the only life he had ever taken was that of a fox, and even then, he was only tangentially responsible. On that occasion, one of the hollow-guards of old had been the one to deal the killing blow. Drift only helped to fatally wound the fox before it could get too close to the Tribe. The blood then was only on his claws, not his conscience.

But the wolf had no conscience. It had taken eight lives counting Shrew, or nine, counting the stress it had placed on the previous Poolteller until his heart had given out, and it showed no remorse for any of those deaths. Why should Drift offer mercy to the beast when it was incapable of doing the same?

He pushed his personal encounters out of mind, because they didn't feel like mercy anymore. They felt like a slash to the back, an underhanded blow. They made him feel guilty to have survived while so many others had not.

So Drift followed the trail through the dead of night, drawing courage and vengeance from the same font. Even when the trail waned, he did not let it go, always clinging to the barest hints of blood. As the night wore on, the chill caused the bright drops to congeal, and the moon no longer lit the way. The metallic stench, though, was more than enough, and once a musky fear-scent entered Drift's lungs, he knew he was close.

And he was. He hauled himself up a steep ridge, the dead leaves slick underfoot, and at the top, the wolf was waiting. It lay under the sweeping shelter of a fern, its ruddy hide crossed with wounds old and new. A gash along its belly oozed into the cold air, and Drift heard the beast whine to itself, head lolling forward even as it tried to sit upright, sensing another presence.

There was no way Shrew could have inflicted all this damage on his own. The scars and open wounds were too wide, too deep. Only a creature a comparable size could have done this, and Drift purred with a grim sort of pleasure. The wolf was so depraved that its own kind had turned on it. Its death would be justified.

Bloodlust almost made him a fool, though. In his eagerness to see the end of the wolf's terrible reign, he approached too quickly, and yellow teeth snapped shut a whisker's-breadth from his nose. He scrambled back with a his to match the wolf's weak, defensive growl, and lesson learned, he considered the merits of attempting to snap its neck instead. Ultimately, that seemed unwise and difficult as well; the wolf had enough fight left in it to eye him closely, and its stark ribs suggested it was starved, even resting on the brink of death as it was.

"If you leave, I will find you," Drift warned it as he backed away. Then, once he was at a safe distance, he ran.

Time was of the essence. He didn't want to offer the wolf a long, bloody death as it withered under the ferns. He wanted to inflict pain on it himself, to be the ultimate agent of its death, and he knew precisely how to become such a thing.

All manner of creatures exist in the night: those that hunt, and those that are hunted make up the bulk of moonlit life in the forest. It was precarious to exist as both, but with the wolf so badly injured, Drift felt that his chances of dying with his tail between his legs were much smaller than usual for a hollow-guard on the night shift. Without fear, he scoured the forest until he crossed paths with a mouse, which he killed with a heavy blow instead of a clean bite. His hunting technique was not especially refined given how rarely he had need of it, but that night, it was good enough.

The mouse was not a late meal for him, though. It smelled delicious, almost painfully so as he took it in his jaws, but he resisted, channeling his focus into returning to the wolf without delay. His only stop was beneath a cluster of hemlock, where he pinned down a frond with one paw and sliced of a cluster of deadly flowers with a claw on the other. These he stuffed inside the mouse, and the rest of the way back, he took great care not to allow the flowers in the mouse's slit belly to touch his tongue.

Perhaps doing so was an impossible feat, but he returned to the wolf all the same, and the creature looked more listless than ever. Drift dropped his prize before it.

"Go on," he muttered when the wolf didn't react. "It's a fresh, juicy mouse. It's still warm."

In the end, the wolf only lunged for the poisoned offering when Drift kicked the mouse toward it, at which point the mouse bounced off the wolf's nose before disappearing almost whole down its gullet. When the last scrap of the tail was gone, the wolf blinked at Drift slowly, like it was thanking him.

Drift's blood boiled. He hadn't known exactly what he would do once the mouse was gone, but that grateful glance settled it. "Don't thank me," he snarled, taking a seat a fox-length away. "I'm going to watch you die."

Maybe the wolf understood. Maybe not. But it barely looked Drift's way after that, instead shrinking in on itself as dawn crept closer. It was withering before Drift's eyes by the time the sun arrived, shivering in its ugly pelt, limbs convulsing as the hemlock began to work its way along, inviting death to deliver the final blow.

When the wolf cried out, throwing a strangled howl to the dawn light, Drift finally rose to his feet again. He didn't know if he felt fulfilled, or if Shrew felt particularly avenged among the Tribe of Endless Hunting, but it was time to go. The poison and wounds were doing their work well, and by sunhigh, the wolf would certainly be no more.

Still, he waited, taking the slowest steps away. Hadn't he sworn he would watch it die? Was he not a cat of his word?

But it wasn't honor that held him. It was sick triumph that had Drift in its grasp, that brought him delight as the wolf shuddered and shook, making furrows in the earth as it fought for survival at the very last second. And then, when the wolf seemed to collapse into itself before his eyes, it was white terror that kept him there. With his limbs in total defiance of the urge to run, Drift watched as the wolf's coat grew brighter and brighter, rivalling the leaf-fall colors overhead. Its nose grew shorter, rounded, and its body slimmed, shedding lethal muscle by the second. Before long, caught in the first light of morning, the wolf was no longer a wolf. It was instead a frail ginger tabby tom who bore all the same wounds as the beast, had all the same gravity that Drift just couldn't escape.

The wolf was a cat. A cat was the wolf. And when the convulsions paused, he looked at Drift with disappointment in his eyes. "Oh son," he wheezed. "You have killed us both."


	7. A Curse

Drift wondered if the wolf had ever eaten the mouse, or if he had accidentally swallowed the hemlock himself instead. Perhaps the Tribe of Endless Hunting looked no different than the world of the living, and perhaps they had sent Sun on Cold River to guide him along.

_Oh, son_. The words echoed in his ears. He hadn't heard from his father since he was a fresh to-be, in the days when wolf attacks were rare, when the only one in generations was the one that ripped his father away, not even leaving a trace save for a single clump of fur matted with blood.

But this was his father now. It was hard to conjure up old memories, but Sun was the same down to the melancholy pride in his eyes, an expression identical to the last one he ever wore in Drift's presence. It was his default way to look at his son, because while Poolteller received all his cheer and life, it was Drift whose future he seemed to see shadows in, shadows he refused to explain. Sun loved Drift, but somehow, that love was touched with the saddest pride.

Drift opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Apologies, questions, confessions all worked their way to the surface and then died on the tip of his tongue. Sun, though, seemed to have no such trouble. He beckoned Drift closer with a weak wave of his tail, and launched into an explanation.

"We are cursed," he said without preamble, "and that is why I left you so long ago. For that, I am sorry. I did it to protect you and Poolteller from harm."

"You died," Drift corrected him, kneading the grass beneath his feet. "That's not leaving." His heart tripled pace in his chest, and when he could hear it in his ears, he went on, helpless. "Leaving and being eaten by a wolf are two different things. Dying is not leaving. Am I dead now, too? Is this how you're supposed to welcome me to the Tribe of Endless Hunting, by making euphemisms at me?"

Sun narrowed his eyes. "Drift, sit down," he snapped, subsiding into a cough. "Neither one of us is dead, even though I'm getting there. Now listen to what I have to tell you. I was hoping you never had to hear this, but we're short on time.

"Our line is cursed. I do not know how, or why, but someone in our lineage angered the Tribe of Endless Hunting, and with lasting consequences. Right now, I have shouldered the curse. During the night, I become a wolf, and during the day, I become myself." He coughed again, and for a moment, a wistful light filled his eyes. "At least I will die as myself."

Drift shook his head. "No, no, no one is dying, not—"

"Drift, enough! You fed me poison, enough to kill the beast and more than enough to kill me as I am." The sudden tremor racing through Sun's limbs could have been the hemlock or his rage. He fought to raise his head, to look Drift in the eye. "You thought you were doing the right thing. I can't fault you for that. But now you must sit and learn the consequences before there is no one left to teach you what they are.

"When I die, you will take up the curse. It will begin on the next full moon, the moment you step into the moonlight. Whoever you have become, son, you will lose him to the wolf. You will have to fight to keep him, like I did. Choose an anchor, something to protect. Make the Tribe your pack and guard them with your life until you are old like me, and too weak to keep the real beasts at bay."

Drift thought of Shrew in vivid color, his body so small in death. "You mean the other wolves."

"I could only fight so many of them for so long," Sun confirmed. "But you are younger and stronger than I was. If you can keep your wits, you may drive them away for good. Maybe you'll break the curse, if you protect the Tribe well enough. That was why I left. What I tried."

"Maybe you already broke it," answered Drift, but if he couldn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth, how would his father take any confidence in them? It was surreal, to be standing at Sun's side after so many moons without him, to see him not as his fellow guards painted him, a victim of a wolf, but as a living breathing cat. A dying cat. For the second time in his life, Drift was losing his father, and somehow, it ached worse than ever before, probably because it was his fault.

Tribe of Endless Hunting above, he had killed his own father.

The apologies streamed out, each less coherent than the last, each coming faster and faster than those before. Drift felt like he was in a dream, an impossible dream, but the snow was beginning to bite his feet, and the vicious ache in his lungs worsened with every breath, grief made palpable. No dream brought such pain. No dream could. "I thought you killed Shrew," he sobbed. "Shrew is dead, and I thought you killed him! I've seen you again and again and I thought it was you!"

Sun stretched a paw forward to place it above one of Drift's, and as he did, he coughed, spilling bloodied foam onto his chest. It dribbled out the corners of his mouth, and he ducked his head to wipe it away, shivering and struggling to find the words.

"I'm going to get Poolteller," Drift promised, cleaning a fresh wave of foam away and flicking it into the snow. "I can't bring you back to the camp, but I'm going to get Poolteller. She can help you. Save you. And she misses you, so if I bring her, she can see you again." He chose to believe that Sun's shaking head came from the hemlock, not a refusal. "Please hold on. Poolteller can save you."

He should never have left the camp. He should have stayed for Shrew's vigil, should have taken Poolteller's silent warning not to leave. There was so much he should have done, so much that would have led to any other conclusion than this. It took all his strength not to look back at Sun every few steps as he raced back into the forest, the dawn light filtering down through the thin canopy. He had to focus just to find the way home again.

He could not afford to get lost. The next full moon was three days away, and even then, Sun would not survive that long. At best, Drift's father had until midday. Sun needed Poolteller. Drift needed Poolteller.

But for the first time Drift could remember, Poolteller did not need him. Did not even want him. As he hurtled into camp, blood pounding in his ears, he met her gaze for only a moment before she turned her back on him, stalking into her den.

"Wait!" he called. All around, eyes narrowed as he passed them by, narrowing further when he paid Shrew's mangled body no mind. It was a sin, he knew, to ignore the dead, but patricide was a greater sin yet, one he was running out of time to prevent from happening. "Poolteller, please wait!"

For a moment, it seemed like she would shut him out completely as she vanished among the shadows of her den. But then she turned around and blinked at Drift, eyes glowing, burning with rage. "You missed his vigil."

She let the accusation hang in the air between them, heavy and cold, before continuing. "We grew up with him. He was like our brother. And where were you?"  
"Poolteller, please," Drift began. "While I was looking for the wolf—"

He learned then what it looked like when a dam broke. " _Looking_  for the wolf?" Poolteller echoed. And for the first time in Drift's memory, she exploded.

"The Tribe is dying! One by one, we are being picked off by wolves, and those of us that survive are forced to bury them, provided there's anything left to bury. The Tribe of Endless Hunting welcomes more of us all the time. You know that. Yet you went  _looking_  for the wolf! To do what? Run from it? You know Shrew was one of the fastest cats in this Tribe. If he couldn't outrun the wolf, what made you think you could?

"I have spent the last few moons in my den by the pool. I have seen things I never wanted to see, things past and future and everything in between that our ancestors have decided to show me. I have done it because that is what the Tribe needs from me. But you, you storm out with a death wish! When we're already losing hollow-guards, you go out and chase a wolf. You leave your Tribe undefended and in mourning, and for what? For what, Drift?"

Poolteller's chest heaved. "Well? This had better be good."

Drift knew this was the only grace Poolteller would offer him. He had crossed too many lines at the very worst of times to expect anything less. "Please believe me," he said anyway, and he told her everything.

He told her how he was angry, how it had been foolish to hurl himself into the dark like that. He told her how he wanted revenge or to die trying, how he thought he had the wolf in his grasp. And somehow, he mustered the courage to tell her that he had killed their father, the cat who became a wolf, that he needed her help to save him. "He won't make it much longer," he confessed as pale sunlight crept across the den floor, time marching on. "He needs your help."

Drift knew Poolteller missed Sun by the way she tried so hard not to mention him. He expected her to be furious with him for feeding Sun hemlock, while overjoyed that Sun was still alive, that there was a chance to have him back. Instead, though, the fight left her body, and she cast a long look over her shoulder into the depths of her den where her sacred pool lay. "Wait here," she said.

"But—"

"Wait, Drift. I'll be back in a moment." She slipped past him with her head down, padding into the heart of camp instead of her den's inner reaches. When she returned a few moments later, it was with Flight at her side.

"Are we all going?" Drift asked as they stepped into the den. His heart plummeted as the she-cats exchanged a short glance, Poolteller shaking her head.

"You're staying here," said Poolteller, "until further notice. Flight is here to make sure you don't leave while I lead Shrew's burial."

"I'm sorry," Flight put in. She wouldn't look Drift in the eye. "Grief isn't a good reason to throw yourself into danger. And it won't change the past."

Past. Like Sun was already dead. As if he couldn't still be saved.

They didn't believe him.

The world rocked beneath his feet. A panicked surge of adrenaline in his veins warred with the sudden emptiness in his bones. "You can go without me!" he cried after Poolteller, who had started in the direction of Shrew's body. "He's up on the west ridge, near the hemlock grove. If you hurry, you might still save him!"

But Poolteller left camp bearing Shrew's body on her shoulders, never looking back. Only the other mourners spared Drift a glance, their mixed pity and disdain palpable across camp. To them, he was mad, and he was alive. That made him less important than Shrew's burial by a thousand leagues.

"Please." He turned to Flight, taking a step toward her.

Almost imperceptibly, she leaned away. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I won't let you leave. Can't."

"You have to believe me."

"I do" would have been the best answer. Even "I want to" would have soothed Drift's nerves. But Flight only herded him deeper into the den, where the pool rippled faintly, disturbed by the chill breeze creeping its way through chinks in the walls.

"Get some rest," Flight whispered. "It will help."

It wouldn't. He knew it wouldn't, and he tried to fight it. He considered rushing Flight, escaping, but couldn't bring himself to do that to her. Besides, he still needed Poolteller and her healing knowledge passed down to her by the Tribe of Endless Hunting. She was the one with the skills that brought life.  
Ultimately, he gave up. Restless sleep won out, carrying him into a fitful haze as he lay beside the pool. He could live with poor sleep, at least; it was no stranger to him.

The heaviness that woke him in the evening, however, would haunt him for the rest of his life. Somehow, Drift knew with complete clarity that Sun on Cold River was dead for the last time.


	8. Imprisoned

Poolteller returned too late. When she entered the heart of her den, Drift was already lying beside the pool with his eyes fixed on nothing at all. As she tried to sit at his side, he didn't look her way. He only put a tail-length between them and said, "You didn't even try."

He could feel the hurt pouring off of her in waves, clouding the cool air between them. Any colder, and Poolteller's namesake might have been awash in frost.

"Drift," Poolteller began. This time, she did not try to close the distance, and he was as grateful as he was betrayed. "There was nothing to try. Our father is dead."

"He is now," Drift snarled.

"He has been. For seasons." Without looking at her, Drift knew her eyes were pleading. Tired. She had just been in the forest burying yet another of her Tribe, and nothing in the world could make her want to dig up the dead. Especially their father.

But it wasn't a matter of digging him up. It was in truth another burial, one that hadn't needed to happen. Drift rose to circle the pool's edge. "I'm not mad."

"You're grieving. It makes the best of us mad."

"I'm not mad," he repeated. "I am telling the truth. I have been, but you refuse to listen. To your brother. Why?"

By now, he found himself directly across the pool from his sister, and she stared into its depths until she spoke, only the faint rise and fall of her chest proving that she had not turned only to stone, even if her heart had. "Dead cats do not suddenly return," she finally said. "We bury them, and they join the Tribe of Endless Hunting. They leave this world for good, and nothing we do or dream will make them return to us. The stars are their hunting grounds now."

"But Sun never died," Drift countered. "Do you remember a body? No, because there wasn't one. There was blood, there was fur, but there wasn't a body."

"Because he was eaten. By a wolf that left tracks right through his blood."

"He left those tracks!" By the time Poolteller had returned from Shrew's funeral, Drift had settled into a comfortable numbness, which was beginning to boil away. Heat gathered beneath his pelt, angry heat, and across the pool, he watched his sister fight to keep her own hackles from rising. "Cats cannot become wolves," she gritted out.

"He did."

"He died!" Always so careful, so controlled, Poolteller snapped for the second time that day. She kicked a stone into the pool with all her might, then slashed her paw through the ripples as they rolled to shore. "Sun is dead," she growled, forcing each word out between her teeth, "and I have grieved  _enough_  for nine lives over without you digging him up to haunt us.

"You are not the only one grieving, but you are the only one dragging ghosts from their graves, and it will make you mad. It will kill you, even if it kills you slowly." She took a heavy, shuddering breath. "I don't want to have to mourn you, too."

It struck Drift then how little they had left between them. They had no other siblings. Their mother had passed, a victim of a valiant old age, and their father had died in their eyes twice now, even if Poolteller refused to admit it. Beyond their crumbling Tribe, all they had left was one another.

At last, Drift sat beside Poolteller, their pelts barely touching. "Have you ever seen him in the Tribe of Endless Hunting?" he asked as he dipped his toes into the clear, cold water. "Have you ever seen him there at all?"

He watched her gather her thoughts. Her eyes grew deeper than the pool before them as she sifted through her memories, through the visions she'd so often shared with their ancestors. "No," she admitted at length. " But his absence is not evidence. He's probably chosen to stay away."

Drift almost said he didn't believe that, except it was true. Sun had kept his distance. He had done it out of love, though, and in the world of the living, not the realm of the dead.

The idea struck then, kindling the briefest spark of hope in Drift's chest. "So ask our ancestors about the truth. Look for him when you sleep tonight."

For a moment, Poolteller's mouth hung open in the shape of a refusal. But then her shoulders slumped, and she let out a long sigh. "If I agree, will you let me rest?" She fixed him with a gaze that might have been stern if it wasn't so weary. "Will you rest?"

There was no hesitation in his agreement. A vision would not bring Sun back to life, but he knew that, no matter how much it pained him. The best he could hope for was that Poolteller would trust him again. That they would not drive each other apart.

"Go," Poolteller finally said, flicking her tail weakly towards the den's entrance. "Just don't leave camp, or I'll have to…"

Neither of them really knew what she'd have to do. Her threat hung empty in the air as Drift slipped away, leaving her to dream of their ancestors, and hopefully of the truth.

So late into the night, there was no one else awake. Drift stood outside Poolteller's den and breathed in the moonhigh quiet. There were no eyes to follow him across camp save for the stars winking between clouds. There was no judgment to plague him, no guilt save for the heavy weight of the waxing moon.

Drift did not sleep, not even in his own nest. He simply lay there, letting the sounds of the night wash over him, basking in the midnight chill.

He only shivered when the wolves began to howl distantly, some time close to dawn.

[-]

He pretended to be asleep as the rest of the hollow-guard den came to life. Judging by the hushed order from Hawk Passing Over Stream to let him sleep, no one realized how long he had been there, still wide awake.

As Hawk left, Drift risked a quick peek through narrowed eyes at the rest of the den, emptier than ever. Peak's nest looked stale and unkempt, as if she hadn't touched it, and squeezing out of the den was Fish in Gentle River, his immense bulk only steps behind Hawk's pale form.

There was no sense in following them. Drift had no desire to risk their pity or their scorn, whichever they happened to feel. His talks with Poolteller had been draining enough, and he didn't want anything further strain if he could help it.

But when Flight poked her head into the den, softly calling his name, he couldn't help it at all.

"I'm awake," he said before she could retreat. "You can come in. No one else is here."

"I know," she answered, sliding into the den. "I saw Hawk and Fish, and Peak slept in Shrew's nest last night… But how are you feeling? Print wanted to make sure you had breakfast."

Sure enough, Print came into the den behind Flight. She waddled backwards to Drift with her tail held high, and clasped tightly in her jaws was a large squirrel. "We can share it," she announced past the fur in her mouth. Her chest heaved like she'd dragged the squirrel all the way from the fresh-kill pile herself, which she probably had even though it was nearly her size in body alone.

"Did you catch that?" Drift asked when she dropped it triumphantly at his feet.

Her eyes gleamed at the flattery, but she shook her head. "Nope! I'm not gonna be a prey-hunter anyway. I'm gonna be a hollow-guard just like you."

Drift's stomach turned over. "You're going to be a to-be first is what you are. But I'm sure you'll be a very fine hollow-guard, too. One of the best." But he looked at Flight as he spoke, not Print, and found his own fears reflected in her eyes.

"She's determined," said Flight. Print was too busy tucking in her portion of the squirrel to hear Flight's dismay. Drift caught it, though. It drove away what little appetite he had, and reverberated in his bones. Whatever fear Flight was feeling, he felt it all the more keenly.

He had seen what the wolves could do. They all had. But only Drift knew the Tribe no longer had a protector. The last barrier had fallen, and at his insistence, too.

The Tribe was in more danger than ever, and he had killed their last hope with his own paws.

It hurt to choke down even small bites of squirrel. His stomach twisted itself into vicious knots, and bile rose in his throat between every breath. Still, he purred for Print when she asked if he liked the breakfast she chose, and he promised Flight that he felt fine even though he felt worse than ever before.

Would the wolves find them, too? Shrew's death proved that even prey-hunters weren't safe. Any day, one of Flight's hunting patrols could meet a threat far too dangerous to face. And Print? If she survived long enough to become a hollow-guard, if the Tribe wasn't devoured long before then, what would become of her?

When Drift was a kit, dreaming of becoming a hollow-guard was honorable. Now, it was a death sentence, and he doubted Print even realized it. She was so young to have already chosen her own doom.

By the end of breakfast, Print had eaten more of the squirrel than either Drift or Flight. She leaped up of her own accord when they had all eaten their fill, volunteering to bring it to Peak, who probably needed something to eat after her long day of mourning, before the mourning still ahead. "There's enough left for her, right?" Peak asked, already pulling the lightly-plucked carcass from the den without waiting for an answer.

Drift and Flight sat in silence as Print left. Only once the last sign of the squirrel's tail was gone did Flight speak. "I'm going to try to change her mind," she whispered. "About becoming a hollow-guard. She's…"

"Too young to die," Drift finished for her.

Flight looked down at her paws. "And so are you."

Drift didn't feel that young anymore. He felt like he'd aged a thousand moons in the last day.

"I'm worried for you," Flight went on. "I know Shrew's death must be hard on you, and I know you must be afraid, what with so few hollow-guards left, but…but please don't do anything reckless. Please."

If anyone in the den was afraid, it was Flight, not Drift, because if there were more deaths, she was the one likely to face the aftermath. Drift was just the one more likely to die.

The thought should have scared him. He should have feared death. But he was more afraid of what he would leave behind, of how quickly the Tribe's defenses would fall with another hollow-guard dead. He was afraid of what it would do to Poolteller, to lose the last of her family. To Print, to lose the first of hers. To Flight, to lose…

He didn't know exactly what she would loose with his death, and even though it tore his heart in two, he hoped she only lost a friend, and nothing more.

He hoped she wasn't in love. He suddenly realized he was. He suddenly wished he wasn't.

"Flight, I…"

Maybe she knew what he wanted to say. He didn't, not with all the words caught in his throat. Maybe she was just guessing, which was fair. Either way, she got to her feet and padded towards the entrance, careful not to disturb the empty nests around her. "Get some rest," she said. "Please."

She hovered there for a moment, the morning light surrounding her with a faint halo. She looked like she had more to say, but in the span of a heartbeat, she was gone. A patrol probably needed her help, or maybe Print needed minding before she found herself in trouble.

Drift missed her the moment she was out of sight, but remained curled into his nest, heart beating out against hollow ribs. He did not rest. He couldn't.


	9. An Old Dream

He dreamt of Wasp on White Stone.

It began as a pleasant dream. Wasp guided him through an endless grove of oaks, and the sky was cloudless. Everything was ephemeral in the sunlight, blurred by dancing dust motes and the sense of timelessness pervading it all. It was just like Drift's to-be days, when he trailed Wasp all around the land, praying some of the hollow-guard's wisdom would rub off on him. Wasp had been his idol. Still was, if Drift dreamt so warmly of him.

But a chill swept over the dream. Grey clouds gathered, creeping down through the trees, and the color leached from the world. The oaks were grey, the earth was grey, even Wasp's shining golden coat was grey.

The wolves, though, were nearly black.

Drift ran from their slavering jaws, and beside him ran Wasp, shouting something that the wolves' howls quickly overcame. They hurtled through the tightening undergrowth together, and even as the world slowed around them, they pressed on.

Wasp fell first, stumbling through a bramble patch. Against the grey, brilliant streaks of red marked where the thorns had ripped into his flesh. "Go, " he said, making no effort to free himself from the brambles creeping up his legs.

"Hurry!" answered Drift. Over Wasp's shoulder, a wolf appeared, brambles parting all around it.

"Go," said Wasp again.

And as the jaws closed round Wasp's head, Drift woke with a start.

It wasn't yet sunhigh. The morning light still shone into the mouth of the den rather than from behind it, and there was a distant hint of birdsong in the air. The world was safe, and the black wolves were gone, merely a product of a short, restless nap. All the same, Drift lay in his nest unmoving, waiting for his racing heart to slow, for it to return to his chest where it belonged instead of thundering away, lodged in his throat.

"Just a dream," he told himself. Which it was. Wasp had died of a cough long before the wolves arrived. He had not been overtaken before Drift's very eyes. It was just a dream.

There were more important dreams to consider, too. Drift thought of Poolteller with dread, and his heart plummeted directly to his gut. If she had made contact with the Tribe of Endless Hunting, her dreams would have real consequence.

Drift forced himself away from the fragile safety of his nest. He had to be certain that Poolteller understood the truth at last, whether she wanted to or not. She needed to know what had befallen Sun after all these moons. She deserved to know.

As he approached Poolteller's den, Drift realized he needed her to know the truth not just for closure, but for his own sake. Hadn't Sun said the curse would be transferred at the full moon? Wasn't Drift next in line?

Outside the den, he prayed for two things: that Poolteller had seen the truth, and that the curse could be ended, if it hadn't died with Sun already. Then, with his prayers given, he plunged into the dark.

He found the pool easily enough. The stone walls had chips of sunlight leaking through, glittering on the water's still surface. "Poolteller?" he called, unable to find her as his eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Across the pool, luminous green eyes snapped open. "I saw it again," Poolteller whispered hoarsely. "I saw the omen, with you and the wolf at the pool. Only the wolf was left."

It was the same vision she had received the night he and Flight had rescued Print. Drift swallowed hard as she continued, her voice brittle and strained. "This wolf will consume you," she told him. "If I keep you here, it will devour your mind. If I let you go, then it will devour your body instead.

"All I have seen tonight is an impossible choice. How am I supposed to decide how my brother will die?"

Drift could not bring himself to move from his side of the pool. "Maybe," he suggested, "it isn't your choice to make. It's not your death."

Poolteller had no argument for that, which only seemed to pain her further. She bowed her head to stare into the pool, unable to meet Drift's eyes any longer. "That doesn't make it easier. There must be another way. You shouldn't have to die."

Death would be so simple compared to the curse. It would be better, maybe, to die before the curse could touch him. But then would it strike Poolteller instead? Or someone else? Was the curse bound to him, or did it simply require a host?

He decided it was better to bear the curse himself instead of risking its transference to anyone else. But he said nothing of the curse to Poolteller; she was in no state to accept it. Instead, he pointed out that the Tribe still needed protection, which it was his job to provide. "Please let me go back to the guard post," he said. "I know it's dangerous, but the shifts are already stretched thin. Leaving the Tribe under-guarded doesn't protect it. Full guard shifts do.

"And besides," he added softly, "if I have to die, I'd rather die doing the job I'm meant to do."

He watched Poolteller wrestle with herself, head and heart at war. She kept opening her mouth to speak, only to cut herself off and satrt over. There was no solution that could please her, not truly.

"Fine," she suddenly said, heaving the word out like a stone. "You can pick up shifts again. But only dawn and day. And move your nest to the healing den. I want to keep an eye on you. One sign that this is tearing you apart, and you're off duty."

Drift sensed there would be no negotiation. The fur on the back of his neck prickled at the thought of moving his nest to the rocky den adjacent to the pool, at the idea that Poolteller still believed he was teetering into madness, led on by his grief. But he nodded nonetheless. "Who's on the day shift today?" he asked. "I'll relieve them before the dawn shift even gets back."

And that was the end of it, as peaceful as they could possibly manage. Poolteller sent him to Fish, a direction as much as a dismissal, and neither she nor Drift said goodbye. Drift suspected neither one of them wanted it to be their last farewell, but it still stung, still filled him with regret. What happened to days when he and Poolteller never fought?

The wolves happened. That was all it took.

He tried to push the matter out of mind while he searched for Fish. His fellow hollow-guard was sharing tongues with his own sister outside the nursery, promising her that the kits would get a chance to meet their uncle, that he would not die. Drift admired the surety in Fish's voice just as much as Ripple of Slow Stream seemed to doubt it.

"That's not a promise you can make," Ripple said, curling her tail around her swollen belly. "They already lost their father. I don't want them to lose the rest of their family before they're even born."

Maybe that was why she looked so grateful when Drift interrupted to tell Fish he was taking the day shift. Just like that, Fish had a few extra hours in the world to be with his family, exactly as Ripple wanted. It was hard not to be jealous as Drift thought of Poolteller and the growing divide between them. It was even harder when he thought of Sun, unburied in the forest with no one to mourn him. No one but Drift.

It was too late for Sun. Similarly, it was too late for Shrew, and when Drift relieved Peak of her station at the guard post, she fled without a word towards the ancient oak grove where her brother's remains lay.

Before long, Drift found himself racing towards Sun in the same way.

He didn't expect to find a miracle, and he knew Poolteller would be livid if she knew he abandoned his post so quickly, but he ran anyway. There was a light coat of frost over the earth, stubbornly resisting the paltry sunhigh warmth, and it chilled Drift's paws until they stung with every step, threatening numbness. The bitter air poured into his lungs, filled his veins with ice, froze his very core. Still, he ran.

He was winded when he climbed the final slope. A few bites of squirrel was not enough to sustain him at such a breakneck pace through the forest. Still, it meant there was nothing in his stomach to throw up, which he was grateful for.

At the top of the ridge, the maggots had already set to work on the wolf's body. The earth was stained a rusty red, and Sun's wounds were ugly and black where they weren't writhing and white with hungry insects. Drift dry heaved before the corpse, the scent of rot swimming through his nose and promising to drown him. If he had any doubts before about Sun's fate, there were none now. Sun was well and truly dead.

When Drift finally got used to the stench, he realized Sun must have died at night if he had died in the skin of a wolf. He held on for so long, but it wasn't long enough. He hadn't died as himself. Would he be admitted to the Tribe of Endless Hunting? He had given his life to protect his Tribe, even in the face of the curse. Drift hoped that devotion would be enough for Sun to earn his salvation.

But that still left his body, the rotting red wolf. Drift couldn't bear to get any closer, not even to rearrange the body into a more dignified pose. He was as repulsed by the maggots as he was by the knowledge that Sun's death was ultimately his fault. And even if he could get closer, he couldn't possibly dig a grave large enough to bury Sun without help. It would take him days to finish such a task alone, and he feared he didn't have days.

He also didn't have much daylight left. Soon, the dusk shift would arrive, and he needed to be back at his post by then. As it was, he'd already taken enough chances by being away so long. He could not risk Poolteller's wrath any further.

"I'm sorry," he said as he stumbled back down the ridge. Sun's corpse said nothing in reply. The maggots continued to feast.


	10. The Precipice

When he returned to his post, there was no one waiting to scold him. His absence was wholly unnoticed, just as he wanted, and there was still plenty of time before the sun would begin to set.

Maybe he should have spent more time with Sun. Could he have at least started to dig a grave? His father surely deserved that much; the grave the Tribe dug for him so long ago was a poor memorial now that Drift knew it had been premature. All that was inside was the bloody tuft of Sun's fur that had convinced everyone of his death far too soon.

It was too late to go back, though. By the time Drift reached the ridge, it would be time to return to his post before someone discovered his absence. If he stayed even to break the earth, soften it for later digging, he would be discovered without a doubt.

So he waited at the old ash tree until Hawk arrived to replace him. "Good to have you back," she said, stifling a yawn. "Not easy spreading three cats over four shifts."

"No, not easy," Drift agreed. Without the heart to tell Hawk that it probably wouldn't be long before they were down to three again, he only bid her goodnight before returning to camp. She barely noticed.

In camp, though, everyone noticed. All eyes were on Drift as he pushed through the camp entrance. It was like he was a ghost suddenly unleashed on the living once more. Cats looked up from their meals, their friends, their children, all to stare at him.

Then Flight came to his rescue, bounding over to invite him to share a sparrow. Print was at her heels in a flash, too, promising that it was a very good sparrow. Drift was inclined to believe her, based on the feathers sticking to the sides of her mouth.

The Tribe watched them as they crossed to the nursery at Print's behest, and only in the growing shade of the den did they finally have any privacy. The ferns which shielded the kits inside from view also furled outward and guarded against unwanted stares.

Sitting there with Flight, Print, and two heart sparrows, Drift felt himself relax for the first time all day.

"We heard you were back on day shifts," Flight said. She nudged one of the sparrows toward him, the one without Print-sized bite marks at its throat. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Feeling up to it," Drift corrected her, staring into the sparrow's glassy eyes. He didn't feel better, not really. He just lived a different sort of sadness now, a sadness lacking in desperation, brimming with emptiness. He wasn't better. His head was just clearer.

Then again, the whole Tribe probably though him completely mad, even Flight. Any show of rationality on his part probably seemed like a vast improvement.

The sparrow was dry and it stuck in his throat, but Drift ate it anyway, he and Flight trading it back and forth between bites. This way, they didn't have to talk, one always with their mouth full. Besides, Print filled the silence with ease, sharing her latest adventures with her adoptive brother. Today, she and Pebble had been so bold as to sit atop the nursery until a hawk swooped down and chased them to Dawn's side again.

"They saw a robin," Flight whispered as Print went on about how she wanted to fight the hawk off, but Dawn and Pebble wouldn't let her. "It scared them out of their skins."

That drew a purr from Drift, and Flight echoed him softly, careful not to injure Print's pride by obviously contradicting her valiant tale. It was almost how things should be: kits telling outrageous stories in the evening light while prey-hunters and hollow-guards shared a moment of peace.

But Dawn broke the spell when she called Print into the nursery. "You don't want to be awake when the wolves come out," she cajoled as she emerged from among the ferns. Once she saw Drift sitting there beside the nursery, though, she lowered her eyes and waited outside only long enough to be certain Print was coming.  
The sparrows were forgotten after that. Drift lost what little of his appetite remained, and Flight studied her paws intently.

"They're trying not to hurt you," she finally said, pushing the sparrows' remains into a neat pile. Then, to Drift's surprise, she stretched out beside him to groom the fur along his spine where it was hardest to reach. "They don't really know what's going on, but they know Shrew was important to you, so…"

Drift kept his silence for a while, twisting to groom Flight in turn. He felt a grain of truth in her words: no one fully understood his grief. Everyone, even Poolteller, thought it was Shrew's death that had pushed him to the edge, not Sun's. Not to mention there was no edge, no madness. There was just the truth, which only Drift believed.

"I just want life to be like it was," he finally said. "Before the wolves."

Flight paused, her whiskers tickling the back of Drift's neck. "Me too," she finally breathed. "Most of it."

"Most of it?"

"Well, I wouldn't change Print."

Neither would Drift. In so short a time, Print had become a steadying force in his life. Her cheer was indomitable, and if only the world wasn't so dire, her enthusiasm would have been infectious. She adapted to Tribe life as if she were born to it, and Drift was certain that without the wolves, she would grow up to be a fine protector of her Tribe.

But there were wolves, and nothing about the future could be certain. The only things that were set in stone were the things already done.

"Flight?" His chest constricted, almost squeezing the air from his lungs. His grief over Sun had not been madness. It had been entirely sensible. But this? Drift felt like he was plunging into the jaws of the wolf. Willingly. That was madness, and the fact that he had the words on the tip of his tongue was madder still.

But he never got the chance to say them.

Poolteller appeared then. "Oh good," she said. "I heard you were back. A word?"

"Breakfast tomorrow?" asked Flight. Her entire body had stiffened, and she brushed past Poolteller with only a curt nod before she was gone, leaving Drift alone and biting his tongue.

Poolteller had enough wisdom to drop her gaze in brief shame, but then she gestured to her den with her tail. Drift saw little choice but to follow.  
"How was your shift?" she asked as they walked, once again in the eyes of all the Tribe.

"Uneventful." Drifted watched Flight's tail vanish into the prey-hunter's den. A bittersweet pang fired off in his chest.

"No signs of trouble?" Poolteller let Drift enter the den ahead of her, then herded him to the healing den. His nest was already waiting inside, though looking a little ragged from being moved across camp, and the herb stores had been pushed up against the walls to make extra room.

"Everything was fine," he mumbled, trying to consolidate the moss that remained into a more respectable heap. "I did my job. Nothing happened." He left out his visit to Sun's body, and Poolteller didn't seem to notice. When he turned to look at her, though, he found she hadn't even crossed the den's threshold. Drift had the entire space to himself. His own den.

He hated it.

"I'm going to get some rest for tomorrow's shift," he snarled. It took all his self-control not to rip his nest apart and assemble it all over. That, he suspected, would leave Poolteller only a whisker away from declaring him unfit for duty.

Still, she did not leave. Instead, she took a seat just outside the den, curling her tail over her feet. "I'm worried about you, Drift. About my vision."  
"I know. Wouldn't be stuck here otherwise." He couldn't keep the barbs from his voice.

To Poolteller's credit, she didn't flinch. "I would do anything to protect you," she said. "I love my Tribe, but you're my blood. You're my only family. I don't want to lose you."

"I know," Drift said again. This time, he curbed the worst of the edge in his voice. "But treating me like I'm fragile isn't protection. From anything."  
She didn't argue. She also didn't agree. "Then will you humor me?" she asked instead. "Just stay here until I'm certain you're safe?"

He wanted to snap, to tell her nothing was certain or safe, that hiding from the truth and all its signs was pointless. But suddenly Poolteller looked so small, so thin. She looked old, even, and it struck Drift that he really was the last of her kin. Pooltellers did not take mates or have kits. Once he was gone, she would have no one left.

"I'm going back to my den tomorrow night," he finally said. "But I'll stay tonight."

And that was enough for Poolteller. She let out a long, quavering breath before nodding. Then she vanished into the heart of her own den, and Drift hoped the pool would not tell her the truth.

Tomorrow was the full moon, and if the curse had not died with Sun, then Drift would not return to any den. He would flee into the forest instead, let the Tribe wonder what had become of him. At least then they would be safe, and if he could not survive this, then that was the best he could ask for. But if he did survive…

He didn't give himself false hope, and dropped into his moss with the thought cut short, the words of a wish banished from mind. He pictured Flight clear as day, though. She haunted him.


	11. Keeping Secrets

The moon was coming. Drift felt it in his bones from the moment he woke. There was morning birdsong and hints of sunlight outside the den, but that changed nothing. The moon was still coming.

Maybe it should have scared him. It didn't. Instead, he lay in his nest and breathed in the cool autumn air, planning all that needed to be done.

First came the dawn shift, which he was already late for. Even if the end was near, it was still his duty to protect the Tribe. He would see that through as long as he could.

Second came Poolteller, who needed to believe nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. She had refused Drift's story at every turn, so perhaps it would be a kindness to indulge her disbelief. Besides, there was no time to change her mind, and Drift didn't want his sister's last memories of him to focus on an argument.

Third, though, was Flight, and as he left the den, Drift realized he had no plan at all. There was a great deal he wanted to say, but he was at a loss as to how to say it. How could he tell her he loved her and that a fate akin to death awaited him? They were not sentiments to be said in the same breath, certainly. But they were becoming intertwined in the worst way, and he could not see how to separate them. He had to deliver them with great tact, or he would ruin everything.

But the moment Print dashed from the nursery with Flight in tow, Drift lost whatever nerve he had gathered. As if he hadn't seen them, and because they hadn't seen him, he threw himself headlong into the forest without a word.

Peak was waiting for him, bleary-eyed and still unsteady with grief. As soon as he approached the guard post, she hurried away in total silence. Drift had too many words begging for release, but he suspected Peak was still searching just for one. At least she had time to search, though. Time was a luxury Drift was running out of faster than he had ever dreamed.

He tried to use it wisely, to think of a way to tell Flight the things he wanted her to know. Each conversation he imagined with her was harder than the last, though. Each conversation did nothing but hurt the Flight in Drift's head, carving deeper with each attempt. The beginning of love and the end of life were poisonous at one another's side. They were impossible to reconcile, both painful truths to their cores.

Drift tried all the same. He strung hundreds of confessions together, one after another, searching for the one that was truest, kindest. So desperate to find the words he sought, he turned Fish away from the sunhigh shift in order to buy himself more time. The guard post allowed him to think in relative peace and total solitude, something he was not ready to relinquish even as the moon kept coming, steady as sure.

But he could not stay forever, and even though it felt wrong to leave his post before a replacement arrived, he gave it up for the final time, the words still tumbling frantically through his head. They could not be refined, not before moonrise, and then it would be too late.

He tore along the path like death was at his heels, which it was, in a way. The world flew by in a blur, suddenly unfamiliar after moons of calling it home, and Drift ran faster still to escape it. At the end of the blur would be the familiar, along with his last chance to embrace it. As he careened into camp, though, all eyes locked onto him, all ears swiveled his way. The Tribe held its breath as it took in his wild, frenzied expression.

Fish broke the silence, standing protectively between the nursery and the camp entrance. "Is it coming?" he whispered. "The wolf?"

The Tribe waited, spellbound, for Drift's answer. Some cats murmured prayers. Others strained into the wind, searching for any sign of a howl. The kits shivered in the nursery entrance, and Poolteller stood aghast at the mouth of her den.

Flight's expression was the worst. Drift had never seen her so afraid before, not even when they were rescuing Print. Her eyes flickered across camp to everyone she loved, one by one. They settled on Drift in the end, sad and frightened at once.

He found the right words, then. The only words that would ever do. "There is no wolf," he croaked. "It's only me."

They were true words. Honest words. And he didn't blame the Tribe one bit for turning their backs on him as those words slipped out. He had scared them all for nothing, brought imaginary death to their door. He made them fear for their lives when there was no need.

It was time to go, and without any more words.

But he couldn't leave as Poolteller rushed to his side. "Are you okay?" she asked, already guiding him to the healing den with her tail over his shoulder.

Flight watched them pass, and Drift could see her heart breaking. She pitied him. Worried for him. Maybe even loved him. "No," he finally said in the darkness of Poolteller's den.

He was not okay.

Poolteller made him lie down. She quizzed him on his health, poked and prodded for hidden hurts that might explain his madness. The moon was the source, though, not that she would believe it. But he didn't try to change her mind. It was easier to wait for the moon to claim him, and to retreat into himself until it did. Pretending at peace was a simple task so long as he curled up inside himself and refused to feel for just a little while longer. Even the gentle tug of the moon on his heart lessened.

Yet Poolteller still managed to shatter the calm, her words stronger than the moon itself. "Stay here tonight," she ordered him. "You weren't ready to go on guard again."

Drift froze. The moon pulled at him with renewed vengeance. "I can't," he wheezed. Then his limbs came to life again, and he lunged for the exit.

"You will," Poolteller answered, cutting him off. "I don't want you getting hurt—"

"I don't want  _you_  getting hurt!" The moon would make him hurt her. He knew it, and he shoved her aside with all his weight, bursting from the den and almost tumbling into the pool beyond. If he didn't leave now, the curse would fall upon him in the middle of camp. He would become a wolf in the heart of the Tribe. No one would be safe.

Drift stumbled around the pool's edge, heart pounding in his ears, moon singing alongside it in haunting harmony. He was almost free, just a short sprint from the camp entrance, and Poolteller would be hard-pressed to keep pace with him in his panicked state.

Except the moment he crossed the den threshold, he was moonstruck.

It burned through his veins. His ears rang, his bones quaked. He ground his teeth so viciously he thought they might snap. One by one, his claws felt like they were being ripped out, and a howl began to build in his throat unbidden, bringing tears to his eyes with its pressure.

Then, as suddenly as it began, all the pain receded save for the ache in his side where Poolteller tackled him back into her den. She rolled away as soon as they landed, every inch of her fur on end, green eyes feverish and wide.

"You are cursed," she choked out.

And however ready Drift thought he had been to become the wolf, he was not. His resolve crumbled and he crawled away from the moonlight, trembling. Somewhere deep, his veins were still aflame.

"It's the moon," he said. "I don't want to change. I don't want to."

Despite all her refusals to believe Drift earlier, Poolteller became at that moment the best sister he could have asked for. Her fur already settling, she led him through the dark to the healing den, careful to avoid the skinny moonbeams peeking into the den. She did not let the curse take him that night. She did not let him change.


	12. The Lie

Poolteller lied, and for the first time, Drift wondered if she had ever lied to him before. If she had, he had probably believed it.

She was a natural, standing before her den in the soft morning sun. From his hidden place within the stone walls, he watched her approach the Tribe, brimming with nervousness and hope at once. The hope was most certainly false, given their conversation, fragmented by fear, that had gone late into the night. She saw no escape from the curse but to avoid the moon, a half resolution at best, and Drift saw no solution at all. All they had was this plan, these weaponized words. And the nervousness, of course. That was genuine. It sold the lie like nothing else could.

"I'm at a loss," she admitted to the gathered . True.

"I think his symptoms were present even before we lost Shrew, and I couldn't see them." Also true, if Drift squinted at the notion just right.

"The Tribe of Endless Hunting hasn't given me direction yet, but I'm going to do everything in my power to keep this Tribe safe. Even from ourselves." True to the last breath.

Come to think of it, Poolteller didn't lie so much as gently bend the truth. That in itself was more convincing than any outright lie she could offer, Drift supposed. Nevertheless, the single falsehood in her speech held its own, even among the truths. It was brutal, and no one knew it was a lie save for Poolteller and Drift.

"Until we are all safe once again, I ask that you help in this. To prevent any more violent visions, please, be mindful if you must speak of the wolves."

That was it. A simple speech wrapped up in slumped shoulders and tired eyes, an air of almost defeat, but not yet. A lie at the end, a hint of violence neatly dropped in to deter questions. The lie wasn't so much in the suggestion, but in the conclusions being drawn all around the clearing. The one skeptical face in the crowd was Flight, but Poolteller turned her aside deftly, claiming "I'm going to check on him now. You can visit later."

Drift was grateful Flight couldn't see him tucked in the darkness, eavesdropping on every word, fully aware of the simple lie racing through camp. He was suddenly distraught, though, that he could see Print tucked behind Flight, and that he could hear her ask, "Is it my fault?" Everyone who heard froze, even Poolteller, who had already turned their back on the Tribe to return to her den. All around, blood ran cold.

"No. No, no, it isn't," answered Flight. But it was too late. The fear had taken hold, judging by the way Print refused to meet Flight's eyes, and pity rushed in in its wake, a stifling force.

Drift couldn't bear it. Before Poolteller even reached the mouth of the den, he was already headed towards the pool, where he plunged his head into the icy waters until his lungs burned. He didn't intend to drown, but  _ancestors_ , if he didn't wish he could hide beneath the surface forever.

His sister dragged him back before she needed to, claws hooked into his pelt. "An ice bath won't change this," she said. Moss appeared in her paw then, plucked from some store or another, and she pushed it all over Drift's head, wicking away the worst of the water. "We made our choices, and we have to hold to them."

"I know," Drift answered. He rocked back on his haunches and began to swipe his paws over his face. "Maybe an ice bath will make me look as mad as you told them I am, though."

"Maybe," Poolteller replied without conviction. She left him to his own devices, floating towards some of her herbal stores, taking leaves from the shelves and rearranging them, only to put them back where they had been in the first place. She was busy this way. Not effective, but at least busy, and if pretended purpose brought her some peace, Drift supposed he could let her have it. It was all they could have at this point, the hope that they could do something. The hope was weak, half-formed, but they were in over their heads and slowly sinking. Anything to stay afloat would do.

Actually, maybe not anything. The secrets, the isolation? It hadn't even been a full day since Drift had nearly become the wolf, since he and Poolteller made their choice to protect their Tribe, and he already felt hollow. Lonely. The world beyond Poolteller's den was no longer his to roam, not when the Tribe feared what the moon threatened to make of him. Less than a day, and he already missed everything he'd lost.

He began to pace the edge of the pool as if the ancestors would recognize his agitation, his curse. As if they would offer him penance or escape. He watched his reflection unblinkingly, as if he might catch the wolf's features spreading if he looked closely enough. All that happened, though, was that he upset Poolteller, not that she would openly admit it.

"The moon's not out," she said, slamming a paw down to cage some runaway berries that had slipped from her grasp. "You can skulk somewhere else for now." Poolteller's herbs were already meant to distract her; she didn't need Drift's pacing to remind her of the truth she was trying so hard to avoid. But her voice softened as she added, "Just be careful."

Careful of what? He didn't ask, though. Instead, he left the pool's edge with a last glance into the water. A cat looked back. He couldn't expect any more from it.

 

 

The Tribe was eager to avoid him most of the day. They watched when they were able, but no on approached him or dared to start a conversation. The queens steered their kits away, and as long as Drift warmed himself in the sun by the freshkill pile, the to-bes refused to take anything from it. Once he moved, the smell of fresh prey making his stomach churn, the young cats moved in as one, a starving flurry of fur. None of them could look Drift in the eye as they skittered away with their meals.

The patrols were hardly better. In spite of their fear about what lay beyond the safety of camp, they flooded into the forest in droves, splitting into two large groups. There was safety in numbers. There was safety away from Drift.

He couldn't even be angry at them. They were afraid, albeit for different reasons than he was, and though the words that made it so had come from Poolteller's mouth, it had been Drift's idea. He didn't want any accidents, just in case the moon came up too soon and someone was too close. For their sake, he wanted them at a distance.

That didn't stop Flight, though. When Drift saw her patrol come home, when he saw her go straight to Print, who was in the shadow of the nursery, he could have drowned in his relief. If she took care of Print and stayed far away, she would be safe.

Except she began to guide Print in Drift's direction, and if he thought he was drowning before, now he really couldn't breathe.

"Hey," he choked out as they padded up to him. Print kept her eyes at her feet, while Flight glanced between them both, a shadow over her eyes. "Did the prey run well?"

"Well enough," answered Flight. They both knew he didn't have to ask. He'd been able to see the patrols bring in their catch, no different than any other day. But formalities were kinder than rushing in, especially with Print quivering just out of sight, straining to hide herself behind Flight's slim form.

Drift couldn't bear it. "Print, what's wrong?" He knew. They all knew, and in response, Print shook her head and retreated further, trusting in Flight's tail to shield her from view.

But Flight nosed her forward again, giving her forehead a quick stroke of the tongue to ease her fears, or at least try. "He's still Drift," she said as Print looked up at her pleadingly. "He's still the same."

What a lie that was.

But Drift had to accept it, had to force a purr free of his throat and rest his chin on his paws in the least threatening manner he could conjure. He was exhausted and afraid, and somehow, he pretended to be nothing but warmth because Print's fear bit into his bones worse than any autumn chill could ever dare. With Flight ushering Print toward him, he lay down and made room for her at his side, and Flight curled up at Print's other flank. It wasn't the same as it had been in the days after they had rescued her, though, when she couldn't bear to be parted from them for longer than a moment. She'd grown in spades, but seemed smaller than ever, and she tucked in her limbs so neatly that she wasn't touching even the tips of Drift's fur. That tiny gap quickly made itself into a ravine.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, so low Drift almost missed it. "You saved me from…from…" She struggled not to speak of the wolves, and Drift struggled not to put the words in her mouth. "You saved me from  _them_ ," she settled on, "and that…hurt you."

"No," Drift started, but Print shook her head so vehemently he clamped his jaws shut and let her speak. Maybe he should have interrupted, given the rising horror etched into Flight's face, but Print needed to speak her piece, it seemed.

"It's not fair. If you hadn't saved me, maybe you wouldn't be…hurt. Poolteller says you have visions. That you've been having them. And I know you don't sleep and Flight knows you don't really eat and I think it's my fault."

"We chose to save you," Flight put in softly.

Print pinned her ears back and winced, ignoring Flight. Her voice cracked as she went on, and she fought to keep a steady pitch. "If it makes you better, I'll go. I'm almost a to-be, and I've been watching them practice sometimes. I can go and live away from here, and I'll never remind you of the wolves again if that makes you better." She looked up at him at last, searching his face. She'd said the word, the one Poolteller had warned the Tribe about. Drift could tell she was expecting something, a flash in his eyes, a jumping muscle in his cheek, a bare fang and unsheathed claws.

But mostly, his heart just broke, and as he tried to wrangle the words into place to convince her none of this was her fault, that there was no reason to believe she had to leave just to make him well (after all, nothing could be well anymore), she sprang to her feet and barreled away to the nursery, where Rose that Blooms After Snow ushered her in with a sweep of her tail. "Print, come back!" Flight called, but by the time she'd managed to rise, Print was already hidden from view.

"I thought she'd be better just talking to you." Her claws dipped in and out of the ground, needling it with more fervor than Drift had ever seen from her before. She was quiet by nature, not nervous, not rattled. "I didn't know she was going to say that. Any of it."

"You couldn't have known," he answered, standing to run his tail along his back before thinking better of it. On the cusp of pressing against her, he leaned away, and by her sidelong glance, he knew he must have looked like he was about to run, about to be the next one to flee.

Maybe he should go. Let Print stay where she would be safe, and let Drift take his family curse into the forest, away from the cats who had done nothing to deserve its evils. It had been less than one day, he thought again, and his resolve was already crumbling. How could he commit to the lie? How could he let Poolteller keep spreading rumors of his madness, even on his behalf? Less than a day, and it was already tearing apart the cats he most cared about.

Flight should have left him there, should have assumed he had nothing heartfelt to say. Or maybe he should have tried harder at being weary and jaded instead of on the verge of a spiraling panic, just to keep her at a distance. But she closed the space between them, touched her nose to his cheek before resting her head against his shoulder, let her tail flutter against his face. He could feel her heartbeat against his skin, a rabbit trapped in a slender bone cage. Judging by the sudden rush of blood in his ears, his own heart was beating just as fast, desperate to match hers and afraid to at the very same time.

They said nothing. There was little that needed saying, or maybe there was too much and neither had the strength. Either way, Drift felt himself splitting in two, and while one half wanted to say goodbye, to vanish into the forest for good, the other half would tell any lie to stay like this, any lie at all.

Somehow, though, even with lies crowding his tongue, he conjured up the truth. "I don't want her to go," he said.

_I don't want to go_ , he meant.

"She won't," Flight said.

_I won't_ , she meant.

And for one night, at least, in part, at least, the truth won. Drift did not sleep well, hidden away in his new den before moonrise came, but at least he slept warmly, with Flight's back pressed against his until dawn arrived. It was better than waiting for morning alone.


	13. Service and Sacrifice

Not long after dawn, Flight slipped out of Drift's den, careful not to wake him, unaware that he was already awake. He watched her go with his eyes nearly shut, sighed as the tip of her tail vanished around the bend. It was not perfect, the choice they'd made and the circumstances they'd made it under. Drift had hardly forgotten the danger, and Flight didn't even know the full extent of it to begin with. But at least their choice was true, even if it was flawed. It was a breath of fresh air in the stifling circumstances, and as Drift waited for the sun to rise full and proper, he breathed easily, just for a while.

But there could not be ease forever, and as the sounds of the waking camp floated into the den, Drift finally lifted himself from his nest and padded outside. On his way, Poolteller was nowhere to be seen, and not a berry or herb was out of place in the den. Apparently she had abandoned her pointless reorganization, and since she wasn't beside the pool, searching for visions, Drift had to assume she'd escaped the den's chilly air, if only for a while.

It wasn't much warmer outside. Another late autumn snowfall frosted the earth overnight, and pawprints marred its soft surface in front of the dens, fresh-kill pile, and camp entrance. The snow seemed to swallow all sound, and Drift fluffed himself up against it as he went to find something to eat. For once, he enjoyed the chill and the isolation it brought. The patrols were out, the guard shift was posted, and everyone else was probably curled up in their nests, noses tucked into their tails. No one stared at him with fear in their eyes or shot him sideways glances when they thought he couldn't see.

He was invisible to his tribe, and he enjoyed it.

The meager thrush he chose was quick to vanish once he settled beneath a fern to eat. It was tough and stringy at best, but tasted better than anything he'd had since the lie began. Somehow, the freedom from being watched brought him enough peace to really, truly enjoy a meal. It didn't turn to ash on his tongue, and he didn't feel his insides curdle when looking someone else in the eye as he deceived them. He was free.

But the bliss could only last so long, and not long after he had taken the bones just outside of camp to bury them, cats began to return from their patrols. The first couple prey-hunters to return had full jaws, but the ones that followed carried nothing save for a heady scent of fear, undercut by iron. Drift froze as they hurtled by, one after the other, so close it was a wonder they didn't tangle and fall. "Poolteller!" cried the lead. It was Splash of Leaping Frog, and his shining white paws were drenched red.

All the air rushed from Drift's lungs at once, and his throat closed up. For a heartbeat, he couldn't breathe, and he flailed to remember who had just passed him by. Splash, yes, but Thorn of Tangled Briar and Song of Pale Lark with prey, and maybe Lily Floating on Still Pond among those wreathed in fear-scent. Flight, though. Where was Flight?

He imagined claws squeezing around his heart, dragging it out of his mouth and shoving it back into place in his chest. "Poolteller was gone when I woke," he said.

Splash screeched and whirled, his claws extended before he realized it was only Drift. Apparently neither he nor his patrol had noticed their tribemate in their terror, and embarrassment flickered briefly in his eyes before fear tamped it down again. "It's you," he breathed. He nodded at the rest of his party, who were already stumbling ahead to hide within the safety of the camp; they had permission to go. "It's…it's the wolf, Drift. It got Peak."

Peak. She was so deep in her grief lately, and Drift fought against the trembling that threatened to sink him. "How?" he forced himself to ask.

"Don't know. Flight and Sparrow are carrying her back. They sent us ahead to find Poolteller. For herbs. Or rites."

So Flight was alive. Drift barely contained his sigh of relief. "I'll go see if she's at her pool," he offered. No one else would dare to enter his sister's den without express permission. "If she's not there, she might be out gathering herbs or getting something to eat."

"Well, she needs to come back." But the sharp edge in Splash's voice came from worry, not anger, and he offered to take up a post at the camp entrance, meaning to watch for Flight and Sparrow's return, or Poolteller's. Drift took it as his cue to leave, and with a final kick, he buried his thrush bones beneath the snow and returned to camp, making a beeline for Poolteller's den.

Just as earlier, she wasn't there, and there was no fresh sign of her, either. Everything carried her scent, but none of it was warm and alive as if she had just passed through. The claws returned to Drift's heart, this time crushing it so tight he could barely breathe, and it took all of his focus to reorient himself. "The herbs," he mumbled, abruptly reversing course as he passed the pool. He almost slipped on the wet stones, but managed to keep his balance as he returned to Poolteller's stores. They were all thin, as was the norm when the frost and snow began to kill her precious plants, but the catnip was in incredibly short supply, and cough season threatened to set in at any time, if the wolves didn't kill the tribe first.

Drift wracked his brains, trying to remember where the best catnip grew, where Poolteller was likely to be, but he kept coming up short. Panic kept his heart stuttering along, and it shredded all his thoughts one by one. He couldn't focus long enough to remember even though he was certain she had told him before. It was somewhere nearby, somewhere on the tip of his tongue.

And then it didn't matter, because the cries went up from the camp, and Drift allowed himself to be led back outside by his curiosity and fear alike.

To his relief, the blood on Flight's white pelt didn't seem to be her own. It was all on one side, where she helped Sparrow Building Fragile Nest carry Peak's thin frame along, and from where he stood, the only open wounds Drift could see were the ones that had savaged the poor hollow-guard. But his blood chilled when Flight called out, "Get Poolteller  _now_. She's still breathing!"

Sure enough, Peak's chest rose and fell shallowly, and as Flight and Sparrow stormed through to Poolteller's den, Drift heard her breath rattling as he leaped aside. Then he followed, because what else could he do? He saw Fish and Hawk among the gathering crowd, standing agape, and the other prey-hunters were shaken, pressing close together and lowering their eyes. Only Poolteller's knowledge was of any use now, and though Drift didn't know much about healing, he knew enough to try and save Peak's life for a few moments longer.

"I know where the marigold is," he offered before Sparrow could order him away. Damn the lie and all its consequences. He could not pretend at madness when Peak needed help, and with all the efficiency he could muster, he went to the herb stores and began pulling out the ones he recognized. Flight appeared wordlessly beside him soon, swirling cobwebs around one paw and taking a fat wad of oak leaves in her mouth when Drift directed her to it. She rushed back to Peak's side, and Drift soon followed with marigold and a heap of moss.

"Chew up the marigold and oak leaves," he said, pushing the yellow flowers toward Sparrow. Then he added, "Ancestors forgive me," as he took the moss and began to dip it into the sacred pool, rushing back and forth between Peak and the water as he washed her wounds and rinsed the moss again and again. There was no time to find another source of water, and if Peak's blood polluted the pool, so be it.

Thankfully, Poolteller didn't care about the blood when she finally returned. She looked more alive than she had in the past few days, dropping her catnip and lunging for her store of poppy seeds. Her eyes burned as she pushed past Sparrow and Flight to place a couple seeds on Peak's tongue, and when Sparrow dared to stop chewing, meaning to ask a question, she snapped at him to get back to it. "Marigold goes on first, then oak leaves, then cobwebs. Drift, keep washing up, we want her completely clean."

Her directions were ruthless but effective, and as she orchestrated her small cluster of helpers, Peak began to look less bloodied and more like a bundle of cobwebs with some black fur poking out in between. By the time Flight and Sparrow were dismissed, her breathing was even, albeit shallow, and her wounds only oozed rather than gushing.

"I'll need to watch her all night," Poolteller mumbled. "Need a dry nest, dock leaves…" Then she seemed to remember Drift was there, and he hurried back to his hidden den to retrieve moss. He had to cannibalize his own nest to gather enough, but Peak needed the comfort more than he did. Gently, slowly, he helped shape it into a nest once more and lift Peak onto it without jostling her. She mewled only once, a wordless, weak cry, when Poolteller shifted her to weave dock leaves into the moss.

Finally, Poolteller rocked back on her haunches and sighed. Her paws were smudged with blood and yellow poultice, and the fire that filled her as she had treated Peak began to subside. "Tell me what happened," she said wearily.

"Splash said the patrol found her in the forest like that. Flight and Sparrow carried her back."

"Wolves, then." They both knew the wounds were too large, too deep to be made by anything else. "She's lucky she survived long enough to come home."

"She's lucky they found her," Drift added.

But Peak was unlucky that Sun wasn't still alive, defending the Tribe. She was unlucky that Drift had poisoned his father and left his home vulnerable. She was unlucky that there was no one to keep the wolves at bay.

There was a lump in Drift's throat that hadn't been there before. His father had embraced the curse as well as he knew how, using it to protect the ones he loved the most. But Drift was hiding from the moon, and had been for two days already. The shock of stepping out into the pale light had been an effective deterrent, and he never wanted to feel that unholy fire racing through his veins again.

That left the tribe undefended, though. Exposed. A sacrifice faced him on either side, one which demanded he either lose himself to keep his home, or lose his home to keep himself. It should have been an easy choice. For a more heroic cat, perhaps it would not be a choice at all. But Drift was not heroic. Mostly, he was afraid, and maybe a little bit angry as well.

Poolteller interrupted his train of thought suddenly. "Stay here unless she gets worse," she ordered him. There was a distant look in her eye, as if she were a thousand moons away. "I'm going to tell the tribe she's stabilizing."

She was gone before Drift could protest, and he was left to sit beside Peak in the cool den air. He hoped she wouldn't slip away while he was there; he hadn't the least idea how to help her now that her wounds were dressed, especially if her condition declined. But it unsettled him to be so close when she was so still. Since Shrew's death, she had been inconsolable and withdrawn, and he wondered if it was an accident that she had crossed paths with the wolf. Drift was supposed to be the mad cat, the hollow-guard so bent on vengeance that he would throw his life away for it. He didn't want Peak to bear that burden instead, regardless of whether she lived or died. For her sake, he prayed it was an accident, that she would be seen as braver than ever, not a victim of her own revenge.

Snatches of Poolteller's words floated into the den soon, and even though he knew he shouldn't stray far from Peak's side, Drift inched closer to the den entrance to listen to his sister. He could see her from his spot in the shadows, sitting at the entrance with her spine straight and her tail curled neatly. Beyond her, the tribe gathered with their faces drawn and haggard.

"The ancestors have spared Peak and brought her home," said Poolteller. "Her condition is grave, and I make no promises about her recovery except that I pledge all of my skills to aiding it. If anyone can offer their knowledge, though, it would be a great relief. How did this happen?"

No one spoke at first. Glances passed from cat to cat until all eyes settled on Flight and Sparrow, who had paused their grooming efforts. They were both still stained with Peak's blood.

"We don't know," Sparrow finally said. "We found her near the burial grove. There was blood, and…tracks. Wolf tracks. But we didn't see it happen, and we sent the rest of the patrol to get you while we carried her home."

"It was her shift," Fish said from the edge of the crowd. "Hawk and I are scheduled for the next two."

So she left her post. Probably to grieve, though, Drift imagined, not to pick a fight she could not win. To his relief, the tribe seemed to draw the same conclusions, judging by the mournful expressions all around. She was not an object of their disdain or pity, but of heartfelt sympathy. That would not heal her, but it at least came as a comfort to Drift, selfish as it felt.

With every passing moment, with every piece of the story sliding into place, Poolteller seemed to wilt. Drift watched as she flicked her tail out behind her to hide its twitching tip, and she surveyed the cats before her longer than usual without speaking. Some judgment was being passed, though on what matter exactly was unclear. And then she shook her head lightly and turned to look at the cluster of to-bes. "Which of you were on patrol?" she asked.

Three cats stepped forward. Mint at Water's Edge was first, followed by Song of Pale Lark and Fang of Bright Fox, the two oldest to-bes. "We were," Mint said. "As a warm-up before Hawk gave us fighting lessons."

"Hmm," answered Poolteller. Then she flicked her tail at Song and Fox, beckoning them forward. "The Tribe of Endless Hunting commends all three of you for your courage. Mint, please take the rest of the day off. Song, Fox, come here.

"With the grace of our ancestors behind me, I now grant you new rank. The Tribe of Soaring Oaks values your dedication and bravery in these times, and we are proud to have watched you grow." She paused before touching her nose to each to-be's forehead, and the young cats looked as if they'd burst with pride. Despite the day's tragedy, the tribe's highest honor was upon them, and there was no shame in their excitement.

But then all the air rushed out of the tribe at once as Poolteller spoke. She looked Song and Fox in the eye, her voice steady and calm.

And then she pronounced them hollow-guards.

No one protested. No one dared. But Drift felt as if his stomach had just dropped through to the center of the earth, and the panicked glance that Song and Fox exchanged wrenched at his heartstrings. They were old enough to advance, yes, but what was once a point of pride had become a death sentence. Surely Poolteller could see that, would walk back her decision. Besides, they were lithe cats, built for stalking prey through the forest, not brawling to the death with wolves. No one was built for the latter, that was true, but it was especially unfair to the new hollow-guards. They should have been prey-hunters.

Poolteller held fast, though. "Tonight and tomorrow, you will keep watch with Fish and Hawk in pairs, and after that, you will begin to take individual shifts. Protect your Tribe with pride."

But it was plain to see they had no pride to offer, only their fear, and Drift pitied how short their lives had become.


	14. The Pack

For three days, there was silence. It had three causes.

The first was the advancement of Song and Fox. They accepted their shifts despite their fear, but the queens and elders held small councils to rage against Poolteller and concoct a way to save the young cats. It was all conducted in quiet huddles that fell completely silent whenever Poolteller happened to go by. They refused to acknowledge her. Their disapproval was a venomous weapon.

The second cause was Peak. She clung to life for the first day with impressive resolve. Drift never heard her wake, but she still breathed all the same. It was a comfort to Flight, who came and sat beside Drift for some time. They pretended two pairs of eyes were better than one for spotting any change in Peak's condition, but the truth of it was that they only had eyes for each other, or for sleeping side by side, braced together against the chilly autumn air that filled the den.

But on the second day, while Flight was out on one of the new, restricted day patrols Poolteller had created, and Drift was eating a morning meal by himself in his nest, Peak passed. She never woke, and never had any goodbyes. In the span of a single breath, between Poolteller consulting the sacred waters and returning to monitor Peak's flagging pulse, she was gone.

Drift swore her last breath still echoed off the cavernous stone walls, even after he helped Poolteller carry her body out to the center of camp to be mourned. No one yowled, not like when Shrew died. His death had been sudden, a shock. Peak, though, had been hopeless since she was borne home with more of her blood across Flight and Sparrow's backs than in her own body. That she had lived so long after that was something of a miracle, or perhaps a kindness. Poolteller said she probably felt little pain as she died thanks to the poppy seeds in her system, and she had died in the camp, not lost in the woods, alone to the end.

It was impossible not to think of Sun, but Drift held his tongue and mourned his fellow hollow-guard she died in the morning, he was even allowed to join Fish and Hawk as they carried her to the oak grove and buried her beside Shrew. They were done midafternoon, and together, they each said a few words over her grave. Hawk called her a prodigy, the brightest hollow-guard in generations. Fish promised she was a joy, delightful both to teach and learn from. And Drift told her she was the most dedicated cat he had ever known.

They all sobered at that. Peak was dedicated, it was true. She had been so dedicated to her brother's memory that she'd died and been buried at his side. It was not something they chose to discuss when they returned home to clean the dirt out from beneath their claws. In fact, they chose not to discuss anything at all.

But the third cause of the quiet came that night. Drift heard it even from deep in his nest, hidden far away from the hungry moon. The wolves were howling, baying back and forth through the frozen night air. Somehow, Drift knew they were howls of joy, and that some creature lying with its heart spilled on the forest floor was the source.

"They're not that close," said Poolteller, who'd chosen to sleep at the other end of the inner den that night, too cold beside the pool.

"Yet," said Drift.

She didn't pretended not to hear him, and rolled over to stare at the wall. Drift thought she fell asleep, too, until she asked, "What do we do?"

For a long time, he did not answer. But then he told her the truth: "I don't know."

It brought no comfort, none at all.

 

Drift slept through most of the day after that brief and terrible silence and death and despair had caught up to him with crushing force, and even though he wanted to make the most of the daylight hours, he slept all the same. He did not dream, thankfully, and he woke only once, when Poolteller tried to rouse him to no avail. He was heavy, leaden with grief and guilt, and only by sleeping did he keep it all at bay. He would have slept longer, too, if Flight had not forced him to his feet.

"We have to go," she said, voice breaking. "They're coming."

"Who?" he asked, but he already knew.

The howls broke, closer than ever before, and with a snarling lilt that filled Drift's bones with ice. The wolves were closing in, their target chosen, their teeth bared. They had the cover of darkness, too, he realized as he looked beyond Flight's shoulder to the sacred pool. There was no sign of sunlight in the den, only the faintest silver glow in its stead.

"Go help Print and the rest of the nursery," Drift said, mind reeling. He couldn't follow Flight into the moon. He had kept her away from his curse for so long; he couldn't bear to break it to her now.

But she started to push him out of the den, toward the pathway at the pool's edge. "They're already being helped. I came to get you." Her expression hardens. "Poolteller said she'd get you after she gathered her herbs. I didn't agree with her priorities."

Drift's stomach flipped. His sister hadn't put him second; she'd been trying to protect him. And the tribe. She had the lie in mind, the curse well ahead of everything else. Heart hammering, he pulled away from Flight even though it pained him to do so, and started towards Poolteller's herb stores, where she was frantically knotting leaf bundles and passing them to cats that came in and out of the den. "I'll help her so she's done twice as fast. Please, help the rest of the tribe."

"I'm not leaving you behind," Flight answered, keeping pace with him easily. Her voice fell, cracking once more. "I don't even know where we going. There isn't anywhere to go. Maybe I could outrun them, or some of the other prey-hunters, but the rest of the tribe can't."

It would have been wonderful to argue that point and prove Flight wrong, but as always, she was in tune with the worst truth. A few select cats probably had the speed to escape. Others might get lucky. The rest, though, were doomed.

But they had to try. Poolteller was adamant about that. "I'm almost done," she snapped, rounding on them both. "Drift, bundle up those last herbs. Flight, start guiding the tribe to the burial grove."

"But—"

"Go!" Poolteller lashed her tail toward the entrance to her den. "I want my tribe safe before I even think about leaving. Use your prey-hunting skills and make it happen. Stay low, stay safe, and while you're at it? Pray."

It was not hard to see why the previous Poolteller had selected her as an apprentice. She could be kind and nurturing, but this was not the time for it. The wolves called for resolve of the most unflinching kind, for unquestionable leadership, and Poolteller had summoned it in spades. It would cost her dearly, Drift knew. Such anger was difficult to fuel. But it was for her tribe, and she would stoke the fire long after it should have died out if that was what it took to protect everyone she had ever loved.

Flight looked like she was going to argue. For the longest heartbeat in Drift's life, he watched her form the words, unsheathe her claws. Then she changed her mind.

"Keep them safe," Poolteller called to Flight's retreating form.

"Do the same," Flight answered, though she looked Drift in the eye instead. He saw fear there, and love, too, just as he expected, just as he dreaded.

And still he lied to her, because that was all he could think to do. "We'll catch up, don't worry. Go ahead." How could he possibly tell her there would be no catching up for him? If he somehow survived the night, trapped in Poolteller's den by hungry wolves, it would be a miracle, the greatest miracle the tribe had ever known.

He had no faith in miracles, though, and set to work bundling herbs even though his paws shook. Beside him, Poolteller was no better. For all her fury, she was trembling, dropping berries and leaves, hastily shoving them back into place and pinning the bundles shut with cobwebs and burrs once they were all together. She kept scattering the herbs, and more than once, she gave up on a bundle and dashed it aside, moving onto the next. Only the best herbs would do. And only the ones she could carry by herself.

"I can't help you carry these," Drift reminded her before she started another.

Her paws froze, hovering over a clump of dried daisies, but then she fell back into her frenzied rhythm. "I know," she whispered. "But you can hide them here, and I'll come back for them." She didn't say he could carry them to her in the morning. She didn't lie like that.

Between them both was the knowledge that Drift's life would end one of two ways: he would either die in the jaws of a wolf, or he would become one of them. Either way, he would be the last to remain in the camp, allowing Poolteller enough time to escape, to avoid witnessing whichever death awaited him. It was not the best of plans, and there was no guarantee the wolves wouldn't track the tribe to the burial grove instead, but it was all they had. That hallowed ground might protect the tribe for a while, and in the meantime, Drift would be the last bastion, or perhaps a decoy. Briefly, he looked past Poolteller and saw there were no deathberries on her shelves, a third choice to spare him some of the pain when it came time for the end.

"Go," he finally said as a flash of movement caught his eye. Cats were starting to rush past the den's entrance, following Flight's lead into the undergrowth one by one. "Stay with them. I'll hide the packets."

Before she could protest, though, the words died in her mouth and she froze in place. Drift followed her frightened gaze as the screams began, and the steady stream of cats suddenly broke, scattering in all directions as the first wolf pounced.

"Run!" he shouted, pushing her toward the fray. It was dangerous there, but more dangerous to be cornered in her den with no way out. The only way Poolteller stood a chance was if she ran now. "There's no Poolteller without you. They need you to survive this!"

She tottered a few steps into the open, then rushed back to him. "What about you?" she shot back. But they both knew the answer, and Drift headbutted her hard enough to push her back towards the camp. Another wolf had appeared, and a third, but they were focused on the elders' den, where Moss and Jay had retreated, not fast enough to make their escape. Drift could see their eyes gleaming murderously inside the thorny shelter, and a flash of claws emerged just long enough to slice across one wolf's nose as it grew too curious. Moss and Jay would likely die there, but they were keeping the wolves busy. It was Poolteller's only chance.

Yet she refused to take it.

She kept coming back to Drift's side knowing full well he couldn't haul her out of camp by his own might. The moon kept him trapped in the den, and his sister had made the decision not to let him die alone, condemning herself in the process. A helpless rage boiled in Drift's chest, and even though it drew more and more attention, he kept pushing her away, trying to make her understand that he didn't want her to die there with him.

But then the others would die, too. Moss and Jay were still fighting even as a wolf began to tear the walls of their den down, and in a nearby tree, some to-bes and prey-hunters were yowling and hissing at the wolves that clawed the bark beneath them. Thorn of Tangled Briar fought beside Fish, and behind them, Rose that Blooms After Snow filled the nursery entryway in spite of her pregnancy, backed up by the other kit-mothers.

Only a few cats had been able to follow Flight, then, and the rest had thrown themselves back into the safest parts of the camp to make their last stand. They were to die at home, on their own territory, not on the run with a wolf pack slavering at their heels. Everything Sun had tried to protect was falling to the wolves all the same, and Drift couldn't bear to see it.

Poolteller came rushing toward him again, still determined to stay at his side until the end, and he crouched, ready to meet her, to hurl her toward freedom one more time. But then he hooked a paw around her leg and sent her rolling deeper into her den.

The fire returned before he even reached the moonlight. It burned, eating away at his pain and his grief. It fed on the memories of Sun, dead by Drift's own paws, Print, afraid to hurt him though she could never, Flight, almost lover and certainly beloved. It was fueled by everything about the Tribe of Soaring Oaks that had shaped him into a hollow-guard.

Then the moon struck him, and the fire turned to ice. His blood froze in his veins, and his claws ripped themselves out to escape. His fur thickened, fighting back against the icy onslaught, and his mouth dripped with blood as vicious, heavy fangs forced their way into place. Through the pain, blinding though it was, he saw the wolves change course, rounding on him with their ears pinned back and growls roaring to life in their throats as they assessed their new enemy.

In a circle around Drift, the snow had melted, leaving a shallow puddle. In it, the moon smiled, soft and sweet and shimmering white. It had Flight's eyes, he thought, and a faint warmth washed over his heart.

Then the wolves closed in.

Drift of Red Leaf threw his head back and howled.


	15. Print of Wolf in Snow

The wolf lived alone at the edge of the Tribe. It left clumps of reddish fur in brambles, and its tracks circled the territory as if it paced there day and night. Sometimes, the Tribe even saw it, the wolf in the flesh rather than it traces. It chased cats sometimes, scaring them out of their skins for a few paces, but it always stopped. It always let them go. Since the wolf appeared, not a single cat had died with their throat ripped out by rancid yellow fangs.

According to Flight, the wolf was a protector. A sign from the Tribe of Endless Hunting. A great foe turned greater ally. Poolteller denied it vehemently; the Tribe of Endless Hunting had given her no signs of grace in the shape of a wolf. Wolves, she said, were ill omens. They spoke of tragedy, usually death, and could not be trusted to keep the Tribe whole. No one believed her, though. Poolteller could be trusted absolutely about everything else, but the wolves had destroyed her family, her flesh and blood, her brother. The Tribe of Endless Hunting could send a thousand signs to prove her wrong, but she would never accept them. Her grief was insurmountable, her secrets endless.

But Print held a different grief in her heart, one that required her to believe. The wolves had been a threat as long as she could remember, all the way back to the night she spent shivering in the cold until Drift and Flight had rescued her. By all logic, she should have hated the wolves as much as Poolteller did. They shaped the earliest days of her life, and not kindly.

Those were the wolves, though. Not  _the_  wolf. The lone beast, with its sky-filled eyes and thick reddish fur, with its broad paws and steady stance, the only wolf seen in the forest for moons. The one that stood over her now, filling the hollow-guard post with its massive bulk.

It breathed into Print's face, the unusual spring chill creating a thin cloud between them. She let out of a breath of her own, nose only a whisker-length from the wolf's.

"Thank you for watching over the Tribe," she said. "The other hollow-guards and I appreciate it."

The wolf did not answer. It looked instead at the nearby ash tree, the bark scored by moons of claws keeping watch at the camp's edge, then back at Print. Its nose shivered and twitched, running along her side, blowing hot, wolfish breath down her spine.

In the next heartbeat, it fled. The crisp snow was broken by its tracks, crystal clear in the silver moonlight, and only the musky scent in the air betrayed the wolf's presence otherwise.

Print of Wolf in Sand looked at the prints of the wolf in the snow, and what little remained of her grief felt something more like peace.


End file.
